That is Where They Wait
by ABCSKW123-IX
Summary: "Never enter the mansion...that is where they wait." All the ninja want to do after the last crazy Day of the Departed is relax. But here comes trouble knocking at the door with a missing ally, and an old, abandoned mansion, and - what in the world is that thing! Watch your backs, ninja. You will not scrape by so cleanly this time. Escape is not so easy.
1. Enter

**(A.N) For any new readers, hey! This is a rewrite/revival of an older fic I kinda left hanging earlier this year. (Not a good thing to do. Hopefully, reviews'll motivate me to keep writing.) The DotD special was so good, I just had to bring this back. And also, what better time to bring back a horror fic than Halloween?** **... I know I'm late, don't tell me.**

 **And my readers who've read the older version of this, you deserve an apology. I'm so sorry for leaving you like that, and I'll try to make it up to you. You'll notice that the first chapter isn't very changed? I like this one, but everything afterwards will be a little different. I've been thinking about this fic all year and the changes in the plot, while insignificant for now, will definitely happen. (I'll have you know that I didn't want to write this set anywhere after season 4 because of how complicated writing ghostie Cole would be with this. But thanks to the special ... :D) If that wasn't hint enough, this is set after DotD! But ... but before the Dark Island books. Those are .. a lot.  
** **I'll post this and get to writing the second chapter! It's amazing now that I've got time to write.**

 **I should probably warn for ... oh boy. It's not going to be a very fun time, first of all. If you're looking for a fix of feel-good, this is not the fic for you! It's also going to crawl a little bit, and I'm trying to squeeze all the exposition and buildup into it as I can. The characters will seem OOC! _Very_ OOC at points. There will be reasons, I promise. ****  
Not to mention, there's a good amount of blood/general dark times in store for all of them, and some creepy supernatural stuff, and, ahem, _allusions_ to death and a past war aplenty, because I don't know how to chill! Probably not for the faint of heart.  
Also will not be writing any ships, including 'canon'/established pairs, because I can't write romance _and anyway this probably isn't the fic for that ..._**

* * *

 _A deserted house in the dense forest, hours from Ninjago City and only accessible on foot._

* * *

Trees, houses, rivers, all flashed by in a blur of green and blue and marbled patches of other colors. Wind blew into its pointed face, over its streamlined body, helping it forward. A flap of black wings, all parts and gears, propelled it forward, into a thick spot of forest. Slowing, lowering in altitude, flapping its wings to control the partial descent, before spreading them again and resuming flight.

Something twitched in the corner of its vision.

A black-feathered head turned towards the miniscule disturbance. Two clawed legs reached for a branch, the rest of it perching soon after. Two eyes glowed faintly blue, illuminating the bark of the trees in the otherwise dark area, and scanned the area.

Nothing.

A rustle in the leaves below.

When the sound registered, it found itself face to face with a cluster of sinister white, glowing eyes, the only break in a void of black.

It was the only warning it received.

* * *

 _No one knows how long it has been there or who used to live in it._

* * *

"Whoa. _That_ is a huge mansion."

Four people stood in front of a old, large mansion. It had likely been painted white once; now, the paint was faded and peeling, revealing the dull bricks underneath. Ivy crawled up the sides. For a few moments, they just stood, letting the wind blow their clothes and hair a bit to one side, and dead leaves from the trees, whose thick, dark green leaves blocked out the sun almost completely and left the sky a dark grey. A patch of sunlight fell on an auburn brown head of hair, making it shine bronze in the dim forest.

The brown-haired boy spoke up, breaking the silence, blue eyes gleaming. "I know. Those rumors the villagers were spreading about this place are really something, aren't they?"

The person on his right, dressed in red with spiky, dark brown hair, turned to him, looking faintly deprecating. "Don't get your hopes too high up, Jay. Some of those _rumors_ were pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I mean, a monster that hunts down anyone in there? Who do they think they're fooling?"

"I would not be so quick to dismiss these rumors, Kai. There may be an element of truth to them," remarked the boy on Jay's left. A patch of sunlight hit his shoulder, and it glinted a metallic silver.

To his left, Cole nodded. "Zane _does_ have a point. Remember way back with the whole dragons and Serpentine shtick? And if you told past me I was gonna become a ghost and then get turned back into a human, I'd ... have never believed it."

Kai glanced at him before turning away and eyeing the large, grandiose exterior again. "...I guess. Besides, it _is_ pretty creepy-looking," he added with a smirk. "Who knows, maybe going in there will show us who the real men are."

"...I do not understand. Are we not all fully-grown already?"

"It's a saying, Zane, it means...uh, it means-oh, never mind," Jay muttered.

Cole tilted his head up, scrutinizing the mansion from top to bottom. "We know the plan, right? We find Lloyd's group, inspect the place, find Shade, and leave. We have a duty to protect Ninjago-" He stopped when he heard a soft noise to his right. "Did you say something, Jay?"

Said ninja looked up and shook his head. "Huh? Nah...keep going."

"Like I was saying," Cole continued. "We have a duty to protect Ninjago so we can't leave it unwatched too long. ... And I wanna take a nap when this is over. All the recent fuss has me tired."

"Don't forget the elemental reunion Skylor's planning," Kai piped up. "If it weren't for Shade, that would've already happened."

"You seem awfully eager to meet up with the other masters again, considering half of them are probably still out for your blood," Jay commented drily. He held up the phone he liked to carry around in his pocket, while holding the book he'd taken with him in his other hand-the screen showed the connection he had established with the falcon rather recently (with Zane's permission, of course.) The blue light from the screen washed over their faces and glowed eerily in the dim light.

"The falcon is flying around here to check for things, right, Zane?"

Zane nodded, following the motion of the red dot that represented his falcon with his eyes.

Cole spoke up. "I think we've got everything under control for now. If Shade's here, we ask him what exactly he was thinking staying in there that long, and leave. Or something ... creepy happens and we can't stay. Either way, we'll have Zane's falcon to warn us about stuff and contact the Bounty, and that's if we can't use our phones or communicators. Hopefully nothing goes wrong here."

"You'd be surprised." At the note of bitterness in his voice, everyone stared at him in surprise. Hurriedly trying to explain himself, he added, "Saying that kinda thing'll just jinx any luck we have! If there's one thing to learn from Murphy's Law" - here Jay stopped and continued in an overly-serious, dramatic voice - "it's that there is always something that could go wrong."

Kai rolled his eyes.

"Well, I'm getting the creeps just standing here. I hate the whole vibe." Cole admitted. "Let's make this quick, shall we?"

"Stop worrying, Jay," Kai said. "This can't take too long; we'll go in and come back out before there's even time for anything to happen. Come on."

With that, Kai gingerly pulled on the door. Once it creaked open, he walked in. Zane went in after him, shortly followed by Cole, who both took a swift look at the outdoors before going in.

Jay waited a moment more to go inside, looking at the mansion as Cole had earlier, something flickering in his eyes. Then, putting the phone in his pocket and clutching the weathered book tightly, he walked in and closed the door, not looking back.

* * *

 _Rumors said that it was ... haunted._


	2. In Poor Spirits

**(A.N) I'll update quicker this time, my ass. I apologize for taking such a long time with this, because the trials of life don't really give much inspiration for writing. :^  
While I'm at it, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, y'all.**

 **I'd like to give fair warning that this fic will … kinda drag. For a while. Because the reveal that really pushes the plot forward comes a good deal later and I've got to build up to that.**

* * *

The walls were a dull off-white color, yellowed with age where they would have once been stark white. In a few places, if he looked hard enough, he could see hints of the design that had undoubtedly once adorned them. (There were very suspicious-looking brownish stains on some parts of the walls. He chose to ignore them.) The floor was wooden, marred with scuff marks and scratches and rotting floorboards, and he chose to stare at a random patch of wood a little distance off, near an old shelf, pushing down a sudden wave of sharp fear surfacing seemingly out of nowhere.

"Whoa, creepy ..." Kai murmured aloud, awed. "It's even bigger than I thought it'd be from the outside."

This place didn't look nearly as bad as the last abandoned building they'd stepped foot in. Sure, it was a little dark, but the sun hadn't set just yet. It looked enough like it was meant to be lived in, instead of being a temple. Were he to actually pay attention to the furniture, it was quite pretty, in an old-fashioned way. There were several windows throughout, but oddly enough, every single one was broken and barred off, with shattered glass from them scattered across the floor.

(Another wave of unease. He pointedly tried to ignore it, ignored the gaping space he was standing at the edge of, and wished the ceiling were at least a little lower. Suddenly, everything felt larger than him, everything. As though he could just phase through the floor and it wouldn't matter. As though he wasn't even standing on the ground. As though he could just … disappear, meaningless, into the darkness that crept at the corners where the walls met.)

A hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie. Turning to his side, his eyes met Jay's concerned face. Jay chose to shoot him a sympathetic smile, not saying anything for once.

(He didn't need to. He knew what Jay wanted to hear from him.)

A quick breath, in and out. "I … thanks, Jay. I'm okay." And then, it was a little easier to remember that his feet were solid, planted on the ground.

Jay's smiled widened a little.

"Cole, if it's too much for you … it's alright if you choose to leave," Zane said calmly. "The rest of us should be okay with handling this."

"I'm not leaving." It was said firmly. "If you're here, I'm here with you. Splitting up is out of the question. Especially with what happened … last time." Cole had brought it upon himself, too. There was no way he'd make the same mistake twice. And no way he'd subject his teammates to the same thing.

"Why'd you bother asking, Zane," Kai deadpanned, rummaging through the contents of the bag he'd carried with him.

"Right, anyways. Is it just me or is it kinda dark in here? Sun must be setting," Jay announced dramatically. "Maybe we can do something about it …" With a flourish, a small spark appeared between his fingers.

It didn't last very long, crackling and buzzing with energy before fizzling out between his fingers.

A beat.

"Huh?"

Brow furrowed, Jay tried again, a miniature lightning bolt materializing with a blue flash between his palms before dying out.

"Heh, nice going, Jay. Real flashy," Kai said.

"Hey! Give me a moment to warm up; I've got it ... " Jay shot a defensive look towards everyone else, and tried again to summon anything, with no success. Now he looked appropriately nervous. "Come on, work with me here ..."

Still nothing.

"Why ... aren't your powers working?" Cole quietly cursed to himself at the way his voice wavered at the end. The nervousness sitting in a tight ball in his stomach wouldn't go away, no matter how much he willed it, and it was starting to frustrate him. What was he so scared for, anyway? He'd laid his fears to rest. An old creepy mansion shouldn't have put him so on-edge.

"I-I dunno! I keep trying but I can't channel anything!"

Zane opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Kai proclaiming, "Alright, I'll show you how it's done," and lighting his hand in a flash of searing orange light. An evanescent flame smoldered for a few seconds before fading into smoke and a surprised cry found itself out of his mouth.

Zane quickly made an attempt to use his own power, and frowned when the chilly mist and miniscule crystals of ice melted into the air within seconds.

A different chill ran down Cole's spine.

Before he could say or try anything, though, Zane spoke up. "It … would appear that our powers do not work."

"Yeah, we got that," Kai hissed. "If anything happens, how are we supposed to defend ourselves?"

"Come _on_ , we brought weapons with us," Cole tried to reason, trying to ignore the all-too-real possibility of anything _supernatural_. (That would be the absolute icing on the cake.) "And we can just do Spinjitzu!" Then something occurred to him. Experimentally, he tested his hands - the tell-tale orange glow shot up his arms, but it was faint. Abruptly, a leg he hadn't even noticed he'd moved buckled, and he was left an ungracious heap on the floor.

"You okay there, Cole? I thought it was the hands giving you problems, not the legs." A nervous laugh escaped Jay as he leaned down and offered Cole a hand. He took it and helped himself up, grunting.

(He'd half-expected Jay's hand to slip right through his fingers. It was still a little difficult to remember that he didn't need to worry about that anymore.)

"Well, this ... still isn't good."

"Thanks for pointing that out, Jay," Kai snarked. "Never would've figured it out without you. This is just _great_. No elemental powers. All we have is a bunch of weapons, and those'll only work on actual living things."

Quick breath in, and out. "We'll … this isn't like last time. There probably won't be any ghosts. And if there are, well … we'll figure out something."

"It was a bit brash to bring up, but Kai does have a point," Zane acknowledged softly. "We will definitely be able to manage without our powers, but we should definitely be careful. Although ... I wonder how Lloyd's group is faring. I hope they're doing well."

Oh _yeaaah_. Lloyd and the other elemental masters were here; he'd nearly forgotten - although with the size of the mansion, they could easily be anywhere. He warily eyed the slightly curved staircase. Who knew how stable it was.

"Lloyd's smart," Kai muttered, pulling out a small pack of gummy bears and popping one in his mouth. "They all are. I bet they're fine." He held the pack out towards Cole. "Gummy bear?"

"That's all fine," Cole noted, "but we should probably find them soon anyway." A second later, he hummed, "Why not?" and took a few gummy bears for himself.

"Hey, gimme some of those." Jay had grabbed some out of Cole's hand before anyone could protest, save Kai's faint "Hey, this isn't a free for all! You brought your own snacks, eat those instead."

"Okay, whatever." Jay was starting to look impatient, twitching where he stood and tapping his foot. "So do we search around here or head straight upstairs?"

Zane turned his head in a wide sweep of the foyer. "There is a lot of ground for us to cover. We should check around here first before heading upstairs."

"Okay, then." Jay made a dramatic heel-turn towards the right. "I say we go this way."

Everyone was already walking left.

"... Or not."

* * *

"Well, I don't think they're here, either," Jay remarked, closing the door to a small, vacant room. Behind him, Kai and Zane finished looking in the kitchen and the surrounding rooms, confirming the lack of anything Lloyd-shaped. Or human-shaped. Cole shut one last door and called out that he hadn't seen anything, either.

"And this is a dead end. I guess that means we're moving on, then." Kai dusted his hands and warily glanced at the floor behind them. (Cole figured pretty quickly what he was looking at - their footsteps were the only thing that had disturbed the thin layer of dust settled on the floor, but now it was moving a little bit on its own, as if there was air moving it.)

Jay piped up as well. "Guess so- … Guys, do you feel that?"

"That chill? _Yeah_ ," Kai grumbled, rubbing his arms in annoyance.

"It _is_ kinda cold in here," Cole agreed. "But it's weird. Wasn't it perfectly normal before?"

Zane looked a little confused - apparently he wasn't feeling it. "Is it not normal now? But I do sense _something_. I just can't tell what it is."

Cole was about to open his mouth and point out the dust on the floor when he caught something moving out of the corner of his eye. The words remained unspoken.

In, out.

Jay was rolling his eyes. "Of course _you_ don't feel anything. Why am I surprised."

"Um, guys?" He must have sounded _really_ scared, because he could feel everyone immediately turn to look at him. "Don't look now, but there's … something behind us."

"Wha-" Jay looked up and down the corridor they were currently in, and whimpered.

"I thought I told you _not_ to look!"

"What the heck _is_ that thing!?" Kai took a nervous step backwards, but didn't reach for his katana. Zane narrowed his eyes to scan it, presumably trying to figure out what it was they were looking at.

"Well!?" Cole demanded. "You got any ideas? Anyone?"

"I can't tell what it is," Zane responded, perplexed. "My guess would have been a spirit of some sort, but my scanners identify negative."

"Spirit, ghost, whatever, forget what it is!" Kai snapped. "The important thing is that it's coming right at us and we don't have our powers! We don't even know if our weapons'll work on something that big!"

Cole felt his heart drop to his stomach as the thing slowly drew nearer, translucent and almost glowing. As it came closer, he could make out a vaguely humanoid shape, chaotic and undefined, faded blues and purples and reds and other colors all enveloped by an ugly blackish-grey. It was absolutely massive, head almost touching the ceiling, bits of it seeming to slough off of its body and dissipating into smoke once they reached the ground. White, void-like eyes glowed faintly, and he realized that there were many more than two covering its ... face? If you could call the mask with its mouths twisted angrily a face.

"Wait, where are you going!?" Cole turned at the sound of Kai's indignant cry. Jay had dashed off and was now disappearing out of sight.

"Jay!" He groaned. "Jay, come back, you can't just run off and leave the rest of us here-"

"Apparently he can," Kai grumbled, stepping in front and drawing his katana. "We might not know if these work, but we can try."

It drew even closer, excruciatingly slowly, as if challenging them. See if you dare to fight me.

In, out. His breath was shaky on the exhale. Nervously, he made to pull his scythe out. The temperature dropped even lower with each step closer it took.

He hated supernatural things with every fiber of his being. As if literally being turned into a ghost wasn't torturous enough, now this - whatever this was - was standing in front of them, imposing and terrifying.

Before he even had time to switch into fighting mode, Kai rashly attacked, twisting into a familiar tornado of red. Once he hit the spirit, it only held him a few seconds longer before growing fainter and dropping a dazed Kai on the ground.

"Wha ..."

"That doesn't make any sense! Powers or not, Spinjitzu should still work!" Cole said, dread worsening. If they couldn't rely on Spinjitzu, what _could_ they rely on?

"Perhaps we should speculate later. Look out, Kai!" Zane warned. The creature swung with an arm-like appendage, tipped with sharp claws, and Kai narrowly managed to jump back and charged forward with his sword out, swiping upwards and hitting its torso. However, he'd made the mistake of coming too close and leaving himself open—

Cole's eyes widened, but the warning caught in his throat.

—Kai was bleeding heavily from his forearm, where the spirit had sliced into it. With a pained hiss, Kai dropped his sword and dropped to his knees. The spirit opened many mouths with jagged teeth and screeched, moaned, cried out words he couldn't quite make out with … he couldn't even count how many voices he thought he heard. Too many. The sound was grating on his ears, and momentarily his hands flew up to cover them.

The prospect of having to fight another spirit was unappealing, but he had no other choice. Swinging his scythe towards the spirit, he jumped in front of Kai, carefully staying out of reach of those horrible claws and swinging the scythe whenever it got too close for comfort. He didn't take any chance to jump forward and attack - making sure they didn't get hurt was more important.

Behind him, Zane helped Kai up. "Cole, we have to escape! We can't waste any energy trying to fight it."

"Yeah, but how are we gonna do that without— look out—" The monster had surprised Cole by rushing forward with another ear-piercing screech, and when he'd pinned himself to the wall to avoid being run into, it had advanced menacingly towards Kai and Zane.

Sensing how quickly the situation could become more dangerous than it already was, Zane pushed Kai a little down the corridor. "You should get away while you can," he advised, eyes glowing blue. "It would be bad for you to be injured worse than you already are."

Kai hesitated.

"Come on, Kai," Cole urged. "You made it nice and mad when you attacked it. Unless you wanna stick around and face its full wrath, scram."

"We'll catch up with you later," Zane promised. Kai narrowed his eyes for a moment, considering, but at Zane's insistent gaze, he nodded, turning and running off. Blood dripped onto the floor behind him.

(He wasn't running in the same direction Jay had gone in, Cole noted.)

"Now what?" Zane asked, raising his voice so it would carry.

"I … I dunno! We can't attack it head-on or we'll be toast," he cried back, swinging at an outstretched arm. Its other arm came swinging much faster than before, catching him off guard and slamming him into a wall (he could vaguely hear Zane yelling his name). His legs and breath were shaky when he got back up.

Zane had readied his shuriken and was alert, but he wasn't throwing them. His eyes met Cole's.

"Go."

"No way! Kai's injured, he's got an excuse. I'm not leaving you behind," he said lowly.

" _Go_. Its aim must be to injure us and split us up. Either way, we have little choice, but if you go now, you'll be okay and we may stand more of a chance when we reunite."

"What about you?"

"I won't try to stay and fight it," Zane reassured him. "I know I stand little chance on my own. Now, _go_."

Reluctantly, he took a step backwards. Then another. Then another. Faster, and faster, and then he was running, all his suppressed nerves coming back up with full force, blinding his reason, he just _had to run_.

Stairs, there were stairs. Blindly, he ran up them - anything to get _away_ , and then he just kept running, grabbed the nearest door he could find, and all but slammed the door shut.

He very quickly realized he'd made a mistake. The room was completely dark without windows and he couldn't see anything.

 _In … out …_

 _In …_

It wasn't working. His breaths were too ragged from running, from the panic.

(It was dark, just like Yang's temple had been that night. He could feel his heart race, his blood pounding in his ears.)

Zane …he'd left Zane all alone, Kai was injured, he didn't know if anyone was okay and they were in a _haunted_ mansion and the air was so stifling and some hellish creature had just burst out of nowhere and attacked them and his head felt like a giant screen of static every part of his body was _tingling_ he couldn't _breathe_ and his stomach roiled uncomfortably and he felt a little bit like crying. Every time he tried to breathe in, a shaky exhale stopped him.

(Was he tearing up? He couldn't tell.)

His knees gave out and he leaned his back against the wall, his quick, ragged breathing the only sound in the pitch-dark room.


	3. Search and Rescue

There was, in the southern-most parts of Ninjago, a predatory animal with no true name, for it could not be accurately identified even by the most prestigious scientists. It was too elusive — slinking in the shadows and emerging with no warning, scattering frightened herds and picking them off when they were vulnerable, one by one.

As Zane concernedly ran over the details of what had just happened, it came to mind. His face twisted into a wry expression at the parallel.

He had to find the other ninja.

They'd come to find Shade, who had vanished without contacting anyone for weeks, from a lead pointing them to the mansion, and they would have to carry through. But as it were, they were not going to manage anything — their medical supplies would quickly deplete if the injuries such as the one Kai had sustained were to become a common happening. The best course of action would be to leave, quickly recover, re-enter, and continue their search a little more aware of what they were up against. But of course it wasn't possible to just leave Lloyd's group stranded. Although they did seem to be a little sparse ...

Just as he'd promised Cole, he had tossed an explosive shuriken or two to distract the spirit before throwing the fight to it and dashing off in what looked like the direction at least one of them had gone. He had perhaps made a mistake in staying on the first floor and holing himself up in a study, however. (At least he'd gotten a key from a desk in the study. It could likely prove useful later.) He'd stayed until he was certain it was safe, and then, on alert, crept out and searched the floor, but he'd found nothing but a trail of blood, no doubt Kai's.

The blood formed a small pool right at the foot of the stairs, and each step that he could see held at least a few drops of blood beginning to darken. Upstairs it was, then.

The wooden banister was elegant and intricately carved into, but age and neglect had worn away at it, and deep marks were gouged into the wood. It was telling how old and marred with scuff marks everything was — the doors, the walls, the floor, and really anything he set his eyes on. Each step he climbed on creaked softly when he stepped on it (taking care to avoid the wet spots), and even knowing that the stairs were most likely safe to walk on, he winced at each one. All they had managed to learn of the building he was currently roaming, from Sensei Wu and the people of the surrounding villages, was that it had once been used as a shelter for refugees from said villages during the Serpentine War. Briefly, he wondered just what had happened then, between these same walls.

Small wonder that the surrounding people never tried to wander inside and investigate.

* * *

The lock on the large double doors was rusty and broken, rendering it useless, Zane noted with interest — judging by the slightly ajar door pulling at the lock's chain, these doors had been opened already. With a little tug, the lock snapped clean off, allowing him to open the distressed doors with ease.

Mindful of the bits of glass strewn everywhere and the fact that the scuffed, damaged wooden floorboards were likely more fragile than they were on the first floor, he took careful steps towards the center, awestruck. The room he was standing in had to be one of the finest galleries he'd ever laid eyes on; grand paintings of many different sizes, depicting landscapes and people that one could only ever hope to see in black and white photographs, lined every stained wall; many of them were scratched up, faded, stained with brown patches, spotted with white discoloration, or otherwise damaged, but they were striking all the same. Sculptures and busts of people lined both sides of the room, magnificent in their age.

All the same, the room itself felt rather off. PIXAL, who usually did all the scanning and left his attention free to focus on other things, didn't scan it when he asked, so he initiated it himself, alarmed when the dark stains splattering and spotting the walls and floor were revealed to be old blood.

Well, if no one knew the fate of those who had hidden here, here at least lay a distinct clue.

But he couldn't let himself get distracted, even by old bloodstains — and the blood he was interested in following would be much fresher. His footsteps echoed a little as he walked through the room, briefly scrutinizing the incredible range of art and the entire room for anything that looked strange. One painting in particular caught his eye — it seemed to be a family portrait, showing a young married couple and a little girl, presumably their daughter, all dressed rather well and looking outwards with content expressions. But the painting was tilted extremely-off-kilter, to the point where it was about to fall off the wall. When he cautiously tried to right it, a small portion of the wall rumbled ever so slightly and moved aside, revealing a smaller, darker room. Huddled in the farthest corner from the entrance was a wary mass, who, with the limited light and his technology, he recognized as—

"Cole?"

The figure tensed for a moment, before relaxing and standing. There was definitely a hint of thick dark hair and skin illuminated in the glowing blue light his eyes cast. "Z-Zane? Zane!"

"Cole!" he cried, relief overtaking him as he confirmed who he was seeing.

"You're _okay!_ I was worried that thing out there got you and I'd just left you to it! I was worried you were going to fight it like you promised not to! I—I … " Cole trailed off, voice shaky, and cautiously leaned forward with his arms raised, silently asking permission. Zane tilted his head in tacit approval, letting himself be enveloped in a crushingly tight hug, and wrapped his arms around Cole in return. (There was a slight tremor in the arms clinging to his back. Cole's heartbeat pounded hard and quick against his metallic fingers and chest.)

"I'm fine, and I kept my word," Zane reassured, once Cole began to let go. "But are you alright? You seem anxious."

A nervous (embarrassed?) chuckle. "Yeah, um. I'm feeling better than before, but uh ... still gonna need a little more time before I can get back out there, ya know? But you can stay here! It's pretty safe, as far as I can tell, even if it does stink; just push a switch on that wall there, and it closes back up pretty neatly. And … and then we can go look for everyone else. Probably shouldn't … be wandering around on your own, you know, it wouldn't be safe—"

"It wouldn't be safe to just leave the others to the mercy of that spirit, either," Zane interrupted, silencing Cole with a hand on his shoulder. "I can keep searching."

"No you can't!" He protested. "You'd be all on your own if it came back. Zane, don't do this, _please._ "

"It's fine, really," Zane insisted. "I can try to stay out of its way again. And look," he said, digging through his drawstring bag, "I found a key to a room. If I need to, I can lock myself in a room for safety until the monster leaves. I promise I'll be safe, Cole. You can stay here and collect yourself until you feel ready to come back out. But we can't leave Kai and Jay on their own."

"... Fine. But speaking of keys, if you really have to go on your own..." Here, Cole dug through his own bag and quickly pulled out a key of his own. "I found this on the first floor while we were looking around. While you're at it, you could try to find out what this key's for?"

"Of course. I will be back with Jay and Kai." Or so he hoped.

He turned and walked out of the gallery, only pausing for a moment when the wall forcefully came shut once again.

* * *

Almost all the other doors on the second floor were locked, with neither of the keys he had on hand working. But at last, one of the doors opened to a somewhat large bedroom, that, aside from the tattered bedsheets and walls, was in surprisingly good condition for its age — especially when it was compared to the rest of the mansion. (He made a note to remember this room — it could be a good spot to hide.)

All he found was, surprise, yet another key. Zane sighed as he put it into the side compartment of his bag where he'd kept the other keys. He hadn't yet found out what Cole's key opened, as it had been his key that opened the door, and were it not for the fact that he was Zane, they might have become hard to keep track of.

From the next room, just a little ways over, he began to pick up the sound of a voice muttering quietly; as he came closer, however, any muttering stopped.

Seeing as the door hung slightly ajar, there was probably someone in there. Figuring it might be a good idea to confirm his theory, he switched his vision to thermal and looked around to track down a heat signature. He found it pretty quickly — and from the slightly-higher-than-average heat emanating from the room, he guessed it was Kai. Which was great; this made for two down. And it was a massive relief, as the blood trail had stopped abruptly right at the top of the stairs and left him with nothing to follow Kai. This way, he could help treat the bad gash in Kai's arm from the encounter they'd had with that spirit.

When he looked down, he picked up warm wet spots interspersed throughout the carpet. He had the suspicion that it wasn't anything they'd packed to drink. Switching back to regular vision revealed large dark smears in the scarlet carpet that an ordinary person could have easily missed, and his concern only grew. Losing enough blood for it to spill all over the carpet was not good, although honestly, it was amazing that it hadn't gotten all over the rest of the floor. Kai must have managed to stop it for a while — a smart move, if the aggressive spirit from earlier had caught wind of the blood downstairs.

Cautiously, he inched his hand closer to the doorknob, but when he touched it, he winced and drew back. There was a very strong aura of fear radiating from the room, and Kai was very impulsive and acted on initial instinct. If he mistook Zane for the spirit coming back to finish him off, nothing good would go out of entering without announcing himself.

"Hello … Kai? Jay? Is anyone in here?"

A moment or two of silence. Then:

 _"Zane?_ … Come in; the door's open."

He did so, shutting it behind him — then it occurred to him that the key he used for the last room could work here as well, and he inserted it. It went in, locking away the outside world with a clean 'click'.

"This way, anything that actually wishes us harm can't come in," Zane said, concernedly appraising Kai's arm. "How did you get in here, if the door was locked?"

"It wasn't," Kai grunted. "It was open when I ran up here, so I just came in. Didn't really bother closing it because of …" He gestured to his blood-soaked sleeve. "This mess."

Said mess had clearly been tended to, even if it wasn't perfect. The sleeve of the red gi had been slashed off above the wound, and he'd attempted to wrap first the sleeve, and then the bandages from his bag around it. For only having one arm to wrap with, it wasn't too shoddy a job, but it still wasn't nearly as neat or tight as it should have been, and the bandages were already soaked through, meaning that he'd been losing blood at an alarming rate, maybe even from an important vein.

To address the blood covering Kai's hands, he pulled out a box of wipes, pulling out two and handing them over before rummaging to find the first aid kit in his bag. Kai took them, rubbing them over his hands and wrists to get rid of as much of the thick crust beginning to form over them.

"Hold still."

Kai looked uncomfortable, but obeyed as Zane came closer, holding out his arm for inspection. Zane unwrapped the soggy bandage and placed it in a compartment, to dispose of when there was a place to get rid of it. Kai had already cut off the sleeve at the wound, but some of the cloth was still wet with blood and slightly sticky, so he peeled that off the skin and chopped it off with the pair of scissors in his first aid kit. Then came cleaning it. (Kai's sharp inhale and tenseness told him he knew what was coming.) There was no way he would be able to get all of the blood off of Kai's arms, but a few wipes got most of it off. The alcohol swabs he used next must have been very painful, but Kai just grit his teeth and bore it.

Once the most grueling part of it was over, Kai relaxed a little. As Zane took out his own roll of bandages, he asked, "Find anyone else yet?"

"I have, actually." Kai murmured a small "oh" — no one else had come in with Zane. "Cole is in another room on this floor, but he is still there as he didn't want to come with me immediately."

"So nothing on Jay?" He winced as Zane applied dressing and the bandages he was wrapping around it started to become tighter.

"I'm afraid not, no."

"Figures that he just runs off and then stays missing. Probably got himself in trouble or something, just watch."

"Let's hope not. I'll keep looking for him and keep an eye out for everyone else, too."

" _We'll_ keep looking. You did a good job with this; I can help look."

"No, _I'll_ keep looking," Zane stated firmly. "You can't risk re-opening that injury. I already found Cole and I found you. I'll find Jay too, I promise."

Kai, now standing, looked him straight in the eye for a moment, looking ready to argue his point, before the smoldering defiance went out and he backed down. "Fine."

"Now, be careful with this arm and don't strain it enough to make it bleed again," Zane warned, as Kai shrugged his left shoulder and experimentally moved his arm around. "Once I find Jay and we get somewhere safer, I'll stitch it up."

"Okay, okay, I'll take care of it," Kai muttered. "Where is Cole?"

Zane briefly described where Cole had taken temporary shelter — the large gallery with the paintings and sculptures and the hidden door in the wall that he'd stumbled upon — and pondered for a second more. When he really thought about it, the room hidden behind the gallery wall was quite secure, tucked away and difficult to access as it was. Considering that there seemed to be no true lock, it wouldn't do as a permanent sanctuary, but it was certainly safe enough for now.

"... Considering the current state of your arm, I don't think it would be wise for you to stay out in the open any more than you need to be. I'll take you there."

"Okay, now, hold on; that's not fair, Zane, I can —"

"If anything stumbles upon you now, it will not bode well for you, considering you are currently incapable of fighting much of anything. Except maybe a fly."

"I —"

"You. Cannot. Fight. Anything _._ Like that." See, Kai? He could be stubborn as well. A moment later, just to be facetious, he added, "And did I not warn you not to dismiss any rumors of danger?"

"Okay, okay, don't 'I told you so' _me_ ," Kai grumbled.

* * *

"Whoa, this has got to be the most art I've ever seen in one room," Kai said, looking around. "This totally belongs in a _museum_ or something. _Get a load of this, Mr. Saunders —_ "

"I'm glad you enjoy the art, although I must admit I did not see you getting quite this excited over it," Zane remarked, amused by the enthusiasm. It was a display on Jay's level of excitement, and uncharacteristic as it was for Kai, Zane found it somewhat endearing. At the very least, Kai would have something to do, other than talk to Cole, while he looked for Jay.

Metal met paint-covered wood as Zane rapped twice against the wall with his knuckles. He was met with silence until he heard something shifting and moving behind the wall and a voice saying, "You know, you could just open the wall yourself. The painting's right next to you."

The hint of laughter in his voice was relieving to hear; it seemed he was doing better.

Zane gripped the corner of the rectangular frame and pulled. "Of course, but I wanted to be polite."

Next to him, Kai blinked for a second, trying to take in the strange, dark room that had opened up in the wall. Cole came out of his spot in the dim room, with a cry of "you found Kai!", and barely hesitated before rushing up to Kai and wrapping his arms around him. Tightly. With a pained yelp, Kai pushed Cole off with his free arm and pulled away the best he could.

"The _arm!_ Watch it."

"Oh, sorry!"

A beat.

".. I'm glad to see that you're okay." A cautious arm wrapped around Cole's shoulders in a one-handed hug, and he beamed, seemingly forgiven.

"Really, though, I'm sorry about the arm, I didn't hurt it again, did I? There's blood on that bandage, yikes, that looks _bad_ —"

"It's _fine_ ," Kai sighed. "I don't think you did anything to it; that's just dried blood from before."

"Dried blood on your bandage, and all over the rest of you, it turns out. Geez, if I'd noticed it before, I'm not so sure I'd have gone for that hug." Cole smirked. Now he was just teasing.

"... Screw you."

"Alright." Cole turned to Zane, who was laughing under his breath, ignoring Kai's playful indignation. "What's the plan from here? Is Kai staying?"

"Yes. I'm worried about getting his arm stitched as soon as possible, but it will take time to do carefully, and I'm sure you'll agree that Jay also needs to be found as soon as possible. Therefore, I'm going to look for him. In the meanwhile, Kai —"

"Yeah, yeah, watch the arm, don't reopen it, I _get_ it, Zane. Go on. And be careful."

"I will. And hopefully, all four of us will be in the same place again soon." He turned to leave, and Cole yelled a "good luck!" behind him.

* * *

The looming doors of the gallery came shut behind Zane with a deep 'thump', and he took a moment to reorient and remember what he had seen so far. Considering he'd searched both the first and second floors by now, the only way to go was up. From here, until he found Jay, he was on his own. And hopefully, it had not gotten to Jay before he could.

The door facing him immediately after he creaked his way off the last step of the staircase was unlocked. Cautiously, he approached and scanned for signs of life, knowing he could very well stumble right into the spirit he was doing his best to avoid, before stepping inside. He felt a little flurry of hope at what the scanner picked up, and walking in only confirmed it.

"Jay!"

* * *

 **A/N: No matter how many times I apologize for leaving this fic hanging well over half a year the way I did, it's not going to be enough. But I am deeply sorry. School, poor time management, and what I'm going to dubiously label depression are all really big writer's block. :,)**  
 **But I'm finished with this chapter! Hopefully I will be able to pick back up from here, although my specialty is disappointing people, so don't be too expectant.**  
 **I've watched Hands of Time, too, and arrgh. Oh boy. It throws a wrench. In some things. A _lot_ of things. That I can't explain, because that would be spoilers. Geez, that's. Some bad timing. :/**

 **Also tfw when Kai doesn't know who nice old Mr. Saunders is  
Also also, consider: "secretly kinda wanted to be an art student" Kai. It explains why he's such a nihilist.  
This joke makes sense if you know anyone who does art, I swear!**

 **And now, responses to guest reviews:**

 **Attack on MLG: Uh …. Thanks for the review? Pure isn't quite the word I'd use for it, though. And weird thing to mention there. Might I ask you not to bring anything like that up again - I'm not even going to be writing any real ships in this.**

 **TheAmberShadow: Thanks for the review! I'm pleased because HoT confirms Cole had some initial difficulty getting used to being human again. And of course he brought gummy bears. They're delicious. Why wouldn't you bring gummy bears to a haunted mansion? And character development — ohhh my. Well. Yes. There is going to be lots of character development. Just not limited to Cole. ;)**

 **Guest: Thanks for the review! I really wish I could've gotten back to you sooner, and I hope you'll still be reading, because I am going to attempt a more regular schedule here. And hopefully, you can get into it.**


	4. Rendezvous

**(A.N.): I need to be more consistent about where I write these things. Anyways, next chapter of TIWTW, finally! This is literally the perfect day to release a chapter, I think. I know it seems like I'm slacking on this big-time, but I promise I'm not! I've been trying to work stuff out a lot, and it's gotten to the point where it's taken over my daydream space entirely. Haven't actually thought this hard over fanfic in ages, yeesh.**

 **Huge,** _ **huge**_ **shoutout to my friend artcanary, who's kind of my beta reader, idea-suggestor, and ear-for-me-to-yell-ideas-at all rolled into one! I know for a fact that were it not for their help, I wouldn't have gotten as far as I currently am.**

* * *

Jay's neck whipped around at his name being called, his backpack nearly hitting the bookshelf he was standing right next to. He almost dropped something he was holding (a book?) but quickly solidified his grip on it before it happened.

"Wh— … Zane!"

"And finally I've found you, as well," Zane said, relief that everyone was accounted for setting in. He took a quick glance at the library around him — shelves upon shelves of books surrounded the both of them, with a mezzanine housing even more shelves; all were a deep brown. Scanning the books, he saw some of them carried familiar titles— like with the art gallery, it was an impressive collection. (Oh, if only there were time to absorb all the information they held.) From the ceiling hung a small but grandiose chandelier, now deformed, with several of its glass pieces broken or fallen off. Several once fanciful lamps on stands stood scattered around the room, lace and satin lampshades tattered and moth-eaten over time. A small table stood on top of the faded, worn red carpet, with a little mantle clock sitting on top of it, and nearby stood an old globe of Ninjago, in surprisingly good condition.

"Is this where you've been hiding the entire time?"

Blue eyes turned towards the mahogany floor shamefully. " … Yeah." Then they turned back up, bashfully meeting his gaze. "I'm sorry for running off, Zane. I just ... I freaked out when I saw that huge spirit thing, whatever it was, and I was already super nervous once we found out powers didn't work! So I wasn't really thinking straight, and I just kinda ... panicked."

After a moment of silence, Zane sighed. "Cole and Kai may be frustrated with you for a little while yet, but it's understandable. I'm happy that you're not hurt, at least."

"Yeah," Jay said, breathing a nervous laugh. "I booked straight out of there, and uh … it didn't follow. It didn't hurt you, did it? I hope not. Ohhh, don't tell me it did—"

"Kai's arm is rather badly injured at the moment. I actually have yet to stitch it — but now that I've found you, I can properly attend to it."

Jay deflated a little, a soft "oh" leaving his mouth.

"B-but don't worry!" Zane went on quickly, sensing a drop in mood and determined not to let Jay feel too bad. "Once it's stitched, Kai will be fine. And Cole simply needs a little time to regain his composure."

The amount of reassurance he saw on Jay's face gave Zane little comfort. The more he examined Jay, he saw that the freckles on his face were sharp against the pallid skin underneath, his eyes seemed dark and hazy, and his breathing, while mostly under control, was actually slightly unsteady and still ragged. Perhaps from the running …

He had the impression it was more than just that, however. Perhaps Jay was more perturbed than he was letting on. But it didn't make much sense, because out of all of them, Jay was the most open with his response to stress. Kai became snippish and lashed out, or closed himself off; Cole would become assertive to a fault and channel insecurity into action, or try to comfort himself; it was always Jay who openly complained and tried to communicate how he felt in a stressful situation. Rarely did he hide it. So why would now be any different?

Abruptly, his scrutiny was brought to a halt, with Jay's voice cutting into his reverie.

"Hey Zane, you're kinda quiet. You alright?"

"Oh, yes. I'm alright. I was just …" He scrambled for something to say. "Thinking of what to do from here. Considering one of us is injured and we may start running low on bandages, it would be wise to leave and then quickly regroup _before_ we came back and properly attempted to find Shade. Speaking of which, it's rather odd that we have been on at least three floors, and there is still no sign of him. I hope that nothing too terrible has happened to him …"

Another breathy laugh from Jay. "Y-yeah, me too. Do we know if we _can_ get out?"

Zane pondered the question for a moment. And what Jay meant by it. "To be fair, we have yet to check the door. We were a bit … preoccupied."

"Don't you know _anything_ about the horror genre, Zane? We've shown you enough classics! Remember the one where —"

"I really do not understand the point of you bringing this up, Jay—"

"Point _is,_ the door's already shut. It'll probably be locked, too; that's always how it goes. There's something weird going on here, I'm telling you! Our elemental powers aren't working at all and there's something bad in the air, so tell me that it's a big reach to assume the door's locked!"

It was not an assumption Zane would have made, actually. Certainly the door had slammed shut behind them, yes, but there wouldn't be any reason for it to be immovably shut. "We should still check, just in case. And we never know; there could be other exits. But later, of course. We need to meet back up with Kai and Cole first."

Jay let out an almost imperceivable huff through his nose. "Fine. But if I'm right about the door, you really gotta start listening to me. You promise?"

Zane blinked. Jay sounded … quite serious on the whole matter. But there was no harm in agreeing.

"I promise." Zane paused for a moment. "What are you holding, by the way?"

"Oh, this? It's nothing. I was trying to hide from the spirit and I was getting nervous sitting around waiting for things to be safe, so I grabbed a book to read."

"Hmm." He wasn't sure how he felt about that answer, but he said no more. "Let us get going, then."

"Um! Give me a moment, Zane." At the confused glance he got, Jay went on. "I just need a moment to check my backpack. I think I knocked it into something. Wait outside for me or something."

"Very well." And then, after a second, Zane did something he had considered but had not even anticipated going through with — he hugged Jay, who started and then tightly hugged him back. Suddenly feeling even more self-conscious, he stepped back after a few seconds.

"I … just thought it would be good. It is an appropriate time for hugs, when you've reunited with someone, isn't it?"

"Uh … y-yeah. Thanks." Jay looked flustered by the unexpected hug, which was understandable (if a little worrying, because if anything, Jay was usually one of the most affectionate members of their team.) He had better let Jay have some time to himself, because whatever was troubling him, he certainly needed to regain a little composure. And besides that, something gave him the feeling that pushing matters would not help.

(He blinked as he realized he was quite tense. But there was no immediate danger … )

Zane turned towards the exit, his footsteps echoing on the wood, and the door clicked shut behind him. Jay stared after him for a few seconds, clutching the backpack to his chest. Then, he stubbornly rubbed at his eyes with his sleeve, stuffed the faded book he'd been holding into his backpack with trembling fingers, and went back outside.

* * *

"So they were a floor under me, the whole time, and I never noticed — uh, _Zaaane_ —"

"I see it," Zane responded quietly. "What was that you had said about it not following you?"

"You think it came up here looking for _me?_ "

"Who knows. Either way, we'll have to try to make our way down the rest of these stairs as quietly as possible."

"And then what?" Jay dropped his voice to a fearful whisper. "These steps feel hollow; maybe we can hide in the space underneath them until it leaves ... "

Zane said nothing in response, opting instead to nod and quietly pick his way down the steps, one carefully-placed foot after the other. Jay followed closely behind, his steps light and quick, and apprehensively his gaze darted between the stairs and the door to the gallery. The spirit had returned, grotesque, so colossal its head was only a few inches short of the ceiling, and barely humanoid, with extra eyes, arms, legs, mouths; looking only just cohesive enough to stay put together and dripping parts of itself onto the floor. (And somehow it was not shrinking in size at all.)

Cautiously, they both touched onto the red carpet of the second floor, and then, watching to ensure that the spirit hadn't spotted them, darted behind the stairs. Currently, it looked more focused on something else … the nearby door.

"Eww, cobwebs," Jay moaned, shaking thick, sticky strands of spider silk off of his hands. The space below the boards of the stairs cast a cold shadow over their faces, and Zane's eyes glowed in the dark. "It's all _dusty_ in here, I might just _sneeze_ and it'll know where we are —"

"Quiet, Jay," Zane murmured. "It would catch us either way if it heard you talking."

"Sorry…" Jay dropped his voice even lower, nervously glancing back towards the door. _It_ was still standing near it, almost meandering around it, but never making a move to go inside. Nor did it seem that it had spotted them yet.

"I don't think it will leave anytime soon," Zane spoke up after a few moments. "Kai and Cole are in that room. And that door is not locked."

"Oh …" A beat. Jay shifted where he was standing. "So that's where they are. I don't like how this looks."

"We may have to drive it off."

"Are you serious? Fight _that!?_ It looks like the black sheep of the clown family walked through a dumpster before being thrown into a blender and coming out with extra parts!"

"Qui _et_."

"Sorry …"

"It doesn't appear as if we have any other choice." ("Aww, come _on_.") "We will have to be careful; without our elemental power, we are more vulnerable. Take care to avoid its arms — its claws gave Kai quite the scratch." Zane poked his head out ever so slightly outside the ledge keeping them hidden. The spirit was uneasily close to the door. If they were to act, it would have to be now.

"I'm fast; I could run up to its front and attack it while you get it from behind," Jay offered, reaching for his nunchaku and readying them for an attack. Zane considered it, then nodded.

"On three." He reached for a shuriken. "One, two … three."

Then they charged.

* * *

The first two shuriken both lodged themselves in the spirit's back and exploded, sending it reeling. Jay didn't disappoint, following up with a rapid strike and hurriedly retreating out of its range, just in case it were to swipe at him.

The noise that it emitted as it recoiled was a thoroughly ugly one that enveloped the length of the hall — a wave of something unpleasant passed through Zane, and he saw Jay shudder out of the corner of his eye. They had a solid start, but they needed to keep going. From inside the door, he could hear noise, and something in him dropped in worry.

"Wh— who's there? Are you _fighting_ it?" That was Cole. His voice sounded dangerously close to the door. If it broke in …

"Don't come out!," he yelled, coming around to its front and throwing an explosive shuriken where Jay had hit it. They couldn't come out now, or they would be attacked again. It was too risky.

"Hey, guys! You okay? Whoop—" Jay had grabbed a vase off of a nearby stand and hurled it up at the back of the spirit's head. Now, he narrowly avoided the claws, and the— _ohhh it had a lot of teeth._ Multiple sets of them snapped shut around the air where Jay's head had been a second ago. It screeched again.

" _Jay!?_ You found him!" Behind Cole's shouted answers, Zane could make out Kai's confused voice if he strained his hearing.

"Hey! What's up, sorry I ran off, but I'm here, gang's all reunited!" A solid leap, another strong flick of his wrist. Jay's nunchaku slammed into the translucent "skin" (if it could even be called that) of the spirit.

"We can talk once this is over! For now, remain where you are. We cannot risk it hurting you or Kai!" Zane hurtled backwards trying to get out of the way of any counterattack the spirit could throw at him; he'd overexerted himself trying to get his unusually sluggish reflexes and movement to speed up, and control over his body was increasingly more difficult.

Something was wrong. It had to be. Curse whatever obscure gear was locking up and impeding him.

Before he could finish his attack, Jay cried out. His back slammed into the wall, and the hand that wasn't holding his nunchaku grabbed at his chest.

Oh _no_.

" _Jay!"_

Three, four, five shuriken.

As they went up in a burst of sound and smoke, Zane attempted to draw all the power he could spare into his chest. Electric shocks were reserved for last-ditch efforts, and usually PIXAL was the one who handled things like the redirecting of energy. But worryingly, he hadn't heard from her once since they'd stepped foot in the mansion.

His attempt was blocked.

A familiar voice spoke.

"I am afraid you cannot afford to redirect your full power to an electric shock."

"P… PIXAL?" A relieved pang. "I was worried about you."

"I am sorry, Zane, but there's no time to explain right now! Focus on Jay."

"Very well." The spirit creeping towards towards Jay again, shaking off the explosions and growling menacingly. Zane desperately hurled another shuriken, trying to buy time. It could _not_ be allowed to reach him. "Redirect as much power to my chest as you can, then. I have to keep it away from him."

"On it." A familiar crackle of power built up in his chest.

The spirit did something very strange next — it hesitated. Zane could have sworn he saw the very shadows themselves shift in that moment. But there was no time to wonder — the second's hesitation was enough for him to attack.

The shock struck the arms pulled in towards its torso, the tendrils of electricity carrying themselves through the translucent form. The spirit let out an especially angry cry that rumbled unnervingly against the walls and the floor, stunned and trying to shake off the shocks. Not quite as loud was Jay's cry of alarm — he had been too dazed to see it coming, probably.

"Jay! Did it hurt you too badly?"

Jay grabbed the hand Zane was offering him, and let himself be hoisted up.

"Nah, it's fine. I'm fine. It just smacked me really hard. Oww … but I don't think it actually did anything."

"I'm glad. I was very concerned for a moment …."

When he looked back at Jay, there was a spark in the other's eyes.

"I've got an idea."

"What—"

"Distract it for me!," Jay cried, sprinting towards the stairs. "Bring it this way."

Stairs? It looked like he was going to use them to increase altitude and use that to attack it with more force on its head, where there were no arms to block. While he was a little concerned about a fall from that height, it was a relatively sound plan. Coupled with the shock he'd just inflicted and another blow, they could potentially chase it off.

He dashed in a semi-circle around the beast, tossing shuriken, daring it to get ever closer to him. It took the bait, pursuing him, bumping into the wall multiple times, attempting to finish him.

He never let it. One shuriken after another, aiming for the vulnerable eyes all over its face (or faces, he couldn't quite be sure). Pull back hastily while it cried out and tried to recover. Wince every time its disjointed voice (voices?) elevated from its perpetual moan to a deranged scream.

A shadow flickered on the floor.

With a triumphant-sounding cry, Jay leapt from the banister and twisted into Airjitzu, kicking his feet down into his target when he landed and swinging his nunchaku forcefully.

They almost went _through_ the spirit's head with a faint purple fog, but the deep 'crack' of a double impact still disturbed the chilly air of the hallway, only a little muffled by the carpeting. With a pained yell, the spirit lashed out, clouting Jay slightly above his chest.

Jay yelped and flailed, trying in vain to grab something to stop his fall. Immediately, Zane rushed towards him, messily managing to catch him, and helping him to his feet.

Almost as soon as his feet hit the floor again, Jay thrust his arm out, and to Zane's shock, his fingertips crackled with electricity that shot right into its face.

With a final shriek, it … disappeared.

"We … we did it. Haha! Zane, we did it!"

"Did … what?"

"You know … beat it!"

"Oh! Yes. … But it disappeared. How do we know —"

"Come _on_ , Zane. We just beat it! Live a little."

"Well. I suppose you're right." A small smile creeped up his face. "... But how were you able to use lightning? Before, all of us were completely unable to use any of our elemental power."

Jay's face twisted in perplexion. "Oh, yeaah. Weird! I'm not sure, actually. I just kinda stuck my arm out on instinct, and it … actually worked." Jay turned his hand palm out, and moved his fingers experimentally. Sure enough, small sparks of lightning slinked around his fingertips, illuminating his hand.

Jay wordlessly met Zane's surprised gaze, wide-eyed, before bursting into a grin.

* * *

"Aaand finished," Zane declared, packing away the needle and string once the last stitch had been sewn. Kai, who'd been tense from repeatedly being poked in the arm with a needle, loosened up a little bit, and let loose the breath that he hadn't quite realized he was holding. "Those should hold until we can leave and find more thorough treatment."

The entire time, Zane had been quietly listening to PIXAL's explanations of what she knew (much to Kai's chagrin — how did one stitch up an injury and converse at the same time!), and now, he called everyone else's attention. Cole had explained a little earlier that he and Kai had moved back out to the gallery because of a strange smell in the space behind the wall, as well as its complete darkness. Jay, presumably because of his squeamishness towards blood and severe wounds, had moved off to a side and tried to text Nya about their situation while he cooled off and waited for Zane to finish.

"Bad news, guys," he sighed, walking up and showing them his screen. "Nothing's going through, no matter how many times I try."

"What!? Lemme try." Kai, who'd finished rebandaging his arm, whipped out his own phone, only to find that it was completely drained of charge. "Aww, shoot."

"Did you try your communicator? We still have those." Cole pointed out, powering up his own.

"Already did," Jay sighed. "No luck, and I can't figure out what's wrong with it."

Cole shook his head. "Mine's isn't working, either. Kai?"

"Nothing," Kai confirmed glumly, his screen glitching out in the same fashion as the rest of them.

"I'm afraid I'm unable to send anything through either device, as well," Zane murmured. "And even worse … no connection to my falcon!"

"Ohh. Man. I'm sure the falcon'll be okay," Cole tried to comfort him.

"Jay, you texted my sister before we got here, right?"

"Yeah, that went through just fine," Jay mused. "So I don't get what happened."

"Lovely, we can't even get the word out if anything happens," Cole said, groaning.

"This place is _so_ creepy."

"No kidding," Kai chimed in. "Next thing you know, there'll be a vampire around the corner waiting to suck your blood." He paused for a moment, grimacing. "Or mine. I certainly lost enough today."

"Eugh. _Don't_ jinx it, Kai, the weird creepy spirit or whatever we're calling it is bad enough!"

"Please. No vampires," Cole sighed.

"Alright, but really," Kai said, sobering up. "No powers has happened before, but Spinjitzu has never done … that. That thing's out there trying to fight us, and we've got no way of contacting anyone to tell them about it. This place is seriously messed up."

"Whoa, hold on. What's this about Spinjitzu?" Jay turned to Kai, dismayed.

Oh, right. He'd fled before they could make that discovery. And Zane had forgotten to mention it to him earlier. Oops.

"Kai tried it earlier and as soon as he smacked into that spirit, it dropped him. Except … our ability to do Spinjitzu isn't linked to our powers …"

"And I was able to do Airjitzu earlier!" Jay pointed out.

"What!? What gives?" Kai groaned.

"Heh. Guess that one is actually just you."

"Kai, what did it feel like when you attempted Spinjitzu?" Zane asked, hoping to find a clue in the answer.

"I felt really …" Kai trailed off, looking for a word. "Weighted down? When I started the spin. And then when I kept trying, my legs gave out."

"So, according to what you are saying, the instability of your Spinjitzu is more physical than anything."

"Are you calling me a weakling?"

"Of course not, I was merely suggesting that —"

"Heyyy, Zane, you never mentioned!" Deciding to nip this development in the bud before it could escalate, Jay stood up and demonstrated. What he'd pulled off earlier hadn't been a fluke; once again, little currents of lightning danced on his fingers as Cole and Kai, who hadn't witnessed the fight, looked on.

"So we _do_ have our powers?" A small flame ignited on the tip of Kai's finger, and instead of going out, it stayed. " _Yes! Alright!"_ He laughed giddily. A moment after the euphoria passed, Kai's expression changed from delighted to confused. "Okay, hold on. So why is it that they weren't working earlier? What changed?"

"Jay, when did you start being able to do that again?" Cole questioned him.

"I … I dunno. I couldn't do it before we fought that thing, I know that much … but we were fighting it, and I got a hit in on its head, and I just kinda stuck my hand out — I don't really know why, to be honest, maybe it was just instinct — but it actually worked! I can actually feel the power a little bit now. But it still doesn't feel normal and I can't do much more than that. Maybe that means we didn't actually get all of it back." Jay had gotten excited at first, but lost steam towards the end. Cole, finding that he could do little more than create a small ball of earth in his hands, looked disheartened right with him.

Kai, meanwhile, hadn't been fully listening, instead playing with the flame and trying to coax more from it. The rest of them were momentarily startled by Kai shaking off an explosive burst of life from fire from his hand and yelping. The dim room, only lit by weak rays of sun filtering through barred windows, briefly erupted in a flash of hot light before the flame died out immediately afterwards.

"Okay, you have got to be _kidding me_." With an annoyed groan, Kai shook his hand and then lit another flame, small enough to maintain this time. Cole chuckled and then sighed.

"Well, I guess that proves your theory, Jay. … Anyway, gimme the details. You hit it on the head?"

Their antics brought a soft smile to Zane's face. But he couldn't allow the conversation on their situation to be derailed any further, so he spoke up and forced the other three to tune back in. "Jay is correct — my apologies for forgetting to bring that fact up."

"Does it change anything that we kinda have our powers back? Do we even know for sure that that thing with the Spinjitzu was just Kai?" Jay asked.

"Only way to find out is if someone tries," Cole ventured, twisting into a spin. Unlike with Kai, the earthy tornado didn't fizzle out, instead stopping with a breathless Cole.

"So it works for you?"

"Yeah, it does," he confirmed, panting. "But it's a lot more exhausting than usual. Heavy, like he said."

Kai tried Spinjitzu, and once again, it stayed until Kai stopped, his forehead also slick with sweat.

"So it's working. But not like usual," Jay stated.

"Just like our powers," Kai murmured, irritated. "Great."

PIXAL spoke up then. "There are extremely high concentrations of highly anomalous magic all over this mansion. I cannot fully discern its effects, but so far it seems to be interfering with electrical impulses and normal bodily functions, as well as any other form of magic, such as elemental powers. This may explain their abnormal physical weakness and inability to fully wield the maximum power of their respective elements." Zane relayed the information and watched the dismay settle in.

"Hold on." Kai interjected. "So what PIXAL's trying to tell us is … we're too weak to even pull off our normal moves. Because of magic?"

"It would seem that way," Zane answered. It was concerning that in addition to lacking most of their powers' capacity, they were also physically weakened. Perhaps his and Jay's latest battle had been closer than they'd realized.

"So all of this is because of magic. Magic!" Cole sighed. Jay chuckled sympathetically.

"Me too, Cole. Me too. … Hold on, did she say 'interfering with electrical impulses'?" Jay asked. Slowly it dawned on them.

"So that's why our stuff isn't working, huh?"

"That's it, we have to leave," Kai said, looking restless. "We're in trouble if we can't reach any of the others."

"That, and it seems our watches aren't working, either." Zane sighed. They looked down towards their watches, only confirming what Zane said — all of them had ground to a halt, and between noon, 4 am, and 7 in the evening, it was rather difficult to tell which one was the actual time. Even his internal clock seemed to be scrambled …

"Well. It really was _about time_ we left, ya know?" Jay said, an odd expression on his face. He received a groan from Cole and a lazy smack from Kai.

"But wait," Kai spoke up. "If _everything_ electrical's being affected …"

"Oh, he's _right,"_ Jay whispered, eyes widening in dismay. "What about you, Zane? You're a nindroid; anything happening to you?"

"They are correct to worry about interference," PIXAL confirmed. "Energy usage is much more inefficient, internal functions are sluggish, and your power source is draining much more quickly than it is recharging itself."

That explained why his feet had felt more like lead than titanium during the recent fight. It must have been his body struggling to shrug off what was apparently a magical disadvantage.

"That is where I was, this whole time," PIXAL explained, starting to sound distressed. "I was attempting to streamline internal functions to at least somewhat of their usual functioning, but this strange magic is so strong, I just can't fully —"

"It's alright, PIXAL," Zane reassured her. "Thank you; I appreciate it. … How much power do I have left?"

"Approximately enough to last slightly more than 24 hours, at the current rate of drainage."

"What? PIXAL, how can that be plausible?"

"What? What's not plausible? What is it, Zane?" Cole asked. At Zane's outburst, all of them looked a little surprised.

"I apparently only have roughly 24 hours of energy before I completely power down," he explained, dejected. "And — what? …. And I can only recharge with enough energy for the next day by doing a complete shutdown, instead of my usual sleep mode."

"Great.," Kai hissed. "So we can't get any outside help, we're barely strong enough to fight our way out, and Zane's power is all messed up! Thanks for running off, _Jay,"_ he added, rounding on the aforementioned ninja, who winced and stepped back. "That was real helpful of you."

Oh no. The stress was starting to seep between the cracks, and Kai was in a foul mood, not helped by his arm. And both these things were beginning to rear their ugly heads.

… He wasn't very sure he appreciated being used as an excuse to pick a fight, either.

"I …" Jay was quiet for a moment, looking afraid. He didn't even bother defending himself when he spoke up again. "Who said we'd have to fight our way out?"

"Use your head," Kai said snidely. "You really think whatever's haunting this place will just, what, let us stroll out? Someone's got a bad case of wishful thinking."

Zane moved to calm his flashing temper, but Cole got there first, squeezing himself in-between the two.

"Kai, cool it!" he said, voice hardening. "And Jay, I'm not exactly _happy_ you just left us to fend for ourselves, but I get it. I really do. Just … try to stick with us from now on? Please?"

"Yeah, definitely." Jay's smile was twitchy and more nervous-looking than anything. "Look, I'm _sorry,_ I wasn't thinking. It won't happen again."

"Good," Cole sighed. "It's just the four of us, for now, and there's no Lloyd or anyone else. We can't really afford for you to start bickering now." Kai shot him a ' _look who's talking_ ' glance, but didn't say anything else, aggressive body language loosening back into guarded alertness.

That seemed to settle the issue effectively … but something Cole said brought up another concern.

"Speaking of Lloyd …" Kai murmured.

"Yes," Zane chimed in, "where is he? And his group, for that matter. We were supposed to meet them here, yet we've been on three floors and there hasn't yet been a single sign that any one of them is present."

There was a troubled silence as each one of them considered the implications.

"... They wouldn't hang us out to dry, would they?" Jay posed the question, voice somewhere between worried and doubtful.

"Are you kidding?," Kai scoffed. "Lloyd was the most determined to do this in the first place. Besides, those three? They would never." Zane could almost hear the unspoken " _unlike you"_ directed at Jay. Judging by Jay's face, so could he. He held back a sigh.

"Yeah, Lloyd's not the kinda kid to do that," Cole agreed. "He's got way too much integrity. But Zane's right; they haven't showed at _all_. It's weird."

"... What if—"

"I'm gonna stop you _right there,_ Jay _,_ " Kai interrupted harshly, distressed once he realized what Jay was about to suggest. "There's no way."

"But how do we _know_ it didn't bump into them first? They could be hurt and we might not even know it. And-and _Shade!_ We haven't seen _him_ , either, and I've been on three floors by now! What happened to him, huh?" Jay's voice rose a little as he went on. Cole and Kai exchanged a glance.

"We don't know yet. And that is okay." Jay turned to look at Zane's face, his own expression suddenly unreadable. "We might not have immediately found what we wanted to, but defeating that spirit bought us time. I can't imagine it'll spring back quickly."

"And last time we lost our powers, it was because Lloyd was possessed … but we have them back now. Kinda. So us losing them _can't_ have been because something happened to him! _He's fine,"_ Kai rationalized. Whether he was saying it more to reassure them or himself, it wasn't quite clear, but he had a good point.

"They're both right," Cole added. "And until we find any other signs of life around here, we've got other priorities. Like finding out how to get out of here. We can do that and keep an eye out for Shade and Lloyd's group at the same time."

"Wow, wouldn't it be _so_ convenient if we just found some kinda escape hatch right around now?" Kai said.

"Let's hope we find _something._ One whole day of that spirit is bad enough; being stuck in here for another would just be pushing it."

"Totally," agreed Jay. "... Although you've really gotta love its reasoning here. Maybe having so many facial features messes with its brain."

"Brain?" Kai scoffed. " _What_ brain?"

"He has a point, though," Cole said. "Lock us up in here and keep us from escaping, then get mad at us for trespassing. A+ logic."

"Honestly," Kai sighed. "You'd think it would figure out 'hey, maybe if I want these weird color-coded fight people gone, I should … let them out …'. But nope, we got stuck with the world's dumbest vengeful spirit instead."

"Vengeful spirit? Is that what you think it is?"

"Why else would it be so insistent on doing us in?"

"I dunno, maybe it ate all the animals around here for lunch and we make a nice dinner." At the disturbed stares sent his way, Cole went "What? It sure _feels_ that way."

"Great, watch that turn out to be true. Thanks, Cole." Jay looked a little queasy.

"First vampires, now this," Zane remarked. "Your conclusion-drawing skills are very … interesting."

"I said _no_ vampires!" Cole cried.

"Also, is no one going to point out 'weird color-coded fight people'? _Seriously_ , Kai?"

"Yeesh, I was just looking for an insult that wasn't 'pajama men', okay?"

All four of them were laughing by now.


	5. Nox

**(A/N): Happy Halloween, guys! I can't believe I'm actually uploading two chapters in the same month …**

 **I'm gonna _attempt_ some form of NaNoWriMo for this thing ... so 1,666 words a day? I'm gonna keel over dead halfway through, I just know it.  
Although this fic is already something I stay up unhealthily late writing ... **

**I have a guest review to respond to!  
RandomDragon: Thank you very much! Kind words are appreciated. 3 And lucky you, here ... is more! Don't expect me to always be this punctual, though. :')**

* * *

"Man, this sucks. What kinda doors do they make that can resist being slammed into that many times?" Cole groaned, tugging on a metal bar blocking a window and careful not to cut his hand on the glass lying around the sill. "And none of these bars are budging, either. Just perfect."

They'd regrouped in the gallery again, and now that that all hope of leaving and resting was gone, they had to talk about what to do next.

"We have to _spend the night?_ That's it. I hate this place," Jay huffed, dramatically dropping himself cross-legged on the floor. "Although these are some pretty neat paintings …"

"Well, wherever we sleep, it can not be here. We've got to find another room." Kai scratched absent-mindedly at his bandages and looked idly at a window, noting the darkened sky and lack of much light coming into the mansion's interior.

"Hold on," Cole interjected. "Didn't Zane find you in a bedroom or something?"

"Yeah, but I got blood all over the bed. And the only clean mattress is in a crib. If you wanna sleep on that, be my guest."

"... Oh."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

* * *

"Down that hallway, took a left … there's a room! You think this one'll be usable?"

"Well, there's only one way to know." Before anyone could stop him, Kai had turned the doorknob and opened the door.

Inside was a sight for sore eyes: two plain beds that stood near each other on one end of a room, and a fireplace on the other end. The beds were bare, but they had sheets and blankets and pillows to use, so it wouldn't be a problem. And since they had regained some use of their powers, the fireplace was useable. Zane closed the door behind him and turned the creaky lock. Best to make sure, after all.

"There's a _fireplace,"_ Kai noticed. " _Sweet."_ He seemed all too eager to set something alight. Considering how dark it was without any windows, and a quick check of the temperature showed an average of 11.4 degrees Celsius, it was understandable.

Kai stared into the empty pit for a second, considering something. Then, much to Zane's surprise, he ripped off the already-torn left sleeve of his gi and tossed it into the fireplace, atop a pile of small twigs and sticks. "Since I won't be needing this anymore …" He summoned a small flame, barely large enough to illuminate his hand, and held it to the shredded cloth, waiting for it to catch fire.

He must have sensed everyone else watching, because he turned around, looking bemused. "What? That was bothering me all day. I don't really need it anymore, and I've _got_ spare clothes. And this way, we can preserve some of our kindling."

"Well, considering how stupidly cold it is, a fireplace is good," Cole said approvingly, eying a bed. "And this'll definitely work for the night!" He happily dropped his backpack on the floor and stretched his arms and back. With satisfaction, Zane noted that he seemed much less tense than he had been earlier, now that they at least understood the conditions they were under.

"Ah, we should probably check to make sure the beds are safe to sleep on, taking into consideration how old they are—"

"Ahh, I love you, sweet soft heaven," Jay sighed, sighing blissfully as he leapt onto the rightmost bed and slowly sank into it, oblivious to Cole's cry of "Hey, watch it! One of us is gonna have to sleep on that thing!"

Zane sighed, and then after a moment, let himself be amused. So much for that, but at least he knew now that the beds wouldn't collapse under their weight. Hopefully it would stay that way.

Kai was injured, Jay looked worn and nervous, and Cole was so tired by this point that it was slowly overtaking his anxiety from earlier. And now there was a chance to rest, finally. They all needed it, even him …

Ah, yes. That reminded him. He would have to completely power down.

"It's for your own good, Zane," a level voice reminded him, nearly surprising him. "Otherwise, you would completely lose your reserves."

"PIXAL! I … I know. But that doesn't mean I like it. If anything happens overnight, how will I know? I'll be no use at all, and I can't detect what's happening around me like I can in sleep mode."

"Then just ask someone else to stay alert, Zane."

"They are _tired_. Do you not see them? They have to sleep if we're going to continue on like this tomorrow."

"You know, Zane, if you don't want us hearing you, you shouldn't be having your conversations where we can." He was startled out of his conversation by Kai coming up behind him, face pulled into an amused smirk. He'd found a small closet of sorts and changed into a spare gi. "One of us can keep watch, it's really no big deal."

"I told you so, Zane." PIXAL said smugly. He ignored her.

"Well, it shouldn't be you. You need to rest if you want your arm to properly heal."

"Alright, alright, geez. I guess everyone taking shifts to keep watch is out, too?"

" _You will absolutely not be doing that_. No one will be well-rested if we do it that way."

"What's this about keeping watch?" Cole asked, curiosity drawing him over once he was finished haphazardly laying their pillows and blankets on the beds. "Good suggestion; I was about to mention something like that myself. Except you can't do it, Zane … So I guess I could do it?"

"Now hold on," Kai replied. "Considering trying to fall asleep's just going to make me roll onto my arm at some point, I doubt I'm doing much sleeping tonight either way. I can do it, Zane."

Poor Zane looked comically uncomfortable with this idea. Of course, it was necessary for someone to keep a look out while everyone else slept, but with the condition they were all in, he didn't have to _like_ it. But before he could protest, the only voice they hadn't heard so far spoke.

" _I'll_ do it." Jay had been plugging in all of their phones to portable chargers, but now he also approached them, expression earnest. "After all, I just ran away earlier instead of helping out. I gotta make it up to you guys somehow."

"You're forgiven, ya know. And you did help fight it off later," Cole said, leaning back against a wall and crossing his arms. "But I mean, if you really want to …"

"Speak for yourself," Kai snorted. At Jay's slightly crestfallen expression, he added "I'm _joking_. But yeah, if you wanna do it, that is _more_ than okay with me."

"I'm not that tired; I can handle it. And after that, it's only fair."

Zane frowned, almost imperceptibly. But after a second, he nodded. "Fine, but be careful."

"Relax, Zane!" He most certainly was not going to do that. "It's not like anything's going to come in here. The door's locked."

He was going to have to completely power down, and he couldn't watch anything going on overnight. Could he really be blamed for being nervous over it?

"If that's decided," Cole butt in, "we should probably eat now."

"Ah, right!" Zane said. "We haven't eaten since this afternoon." 'We' didn't really include him, of course. Since he'd been rebuilt, he hadn't really had the ability to actually eat.

"You'd be surprised what gummy worms can do for an empty stomach if you eat enough of them." All the same, Kai unwrapped a sandwich and tore in. Cole joined with a sandwich of his own, eyeing Kai's meal and muttering something about "sandwiches don't need to be _spicy_ , Kai". Soon afterwards, Jay pulled out a small meal of his own. He really didn't seem eager to eat it, nibbling away at it instead of chowing down with any real vigor, like he would've normally been doing any other time he was this tired. It didn't go unnoticed.

"Uh … are you not hungry or something?" Cole asked.

Jay looked up mid-bite, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"I'm just asking. Because you're barely even eating it."

"Honestly? … Not really. Guess my appetite got … _spooked_ _off_."

"Funny, Sparky," Cole groaned. Kai facepalmed next to him. "But seriously, you doing alright?"

"Uh, yeah? I'm just not that hungry." Jay made a face. "Honestly, my stomach kinda hurts."

"Ouch." Cole winced sympathetically. "Yeah, that's rough. You're doing the right thing, though. You might not be hungry now, but you never know how you'll feel tomorrow."

They were silent for a few moments. Then Jay spoke up, listlessly swallowing a bite. "Hey Kai? Whatever you were doing that burned up your phone's battery life, you might wanna avoid it tomorrow. … I betcha ten bucks it was Chirp."

"Why are you always so quick to assume I'm on Chirp? I haven't been on it that often. And what do we even need our phones for, if they're completely pointless?" Kai groaned.

"You never know, we might still be able to use them for something. They'll make pretty handy lights if anything happens to our flashlights, you know," Jay pointed out.

"May I just bring your attention to one thing. Most recent activity for Chirp account Kai Giang-Smith: six hours ago."

"Wh-how did you know that, Zane!?" Kai sputtered as the others burst out laughing. "We don't even have any connection!"

"Hah! Busted!" Jay cackled. "I want my ten bucks when we're out!"

"Doesn't a true ninja never reveal his secrets?" Zane looked the picture of innocence aside from the smile on his face.

"What does he spend so much time _doing_ on that thing, anyway?"

"A splendid question. Maybe he's telling all the fangirls about his _intricate_ routine in the mornings."

"I do _not_ —"

"Huh. The amount of time he spends on it checks out, anyway."

"— and even if I did, I'd just be flattering them with my knowledge —"

"I mean, come on. Really. Take the hair, that's gotta be like … a half hour, in and of itself. You have to wonder how many chirps he's made about _just_ that."

"Oh, I'll guess … ten?"

"Really, Cole? You're not counting high enough. You know how many times I've almost missed sunrise training because of Kai? Take that number and double it, and then _maybe_ you're talking. Did you _see_ him this morning? We're in the middle of a forest and he still —"

"Hey," Kai interrupted, trying to seem disgruntled and just looking flustered instead, "you realize I'm standing right here?"

Zane just blinked, faintly amused, watching Jay and Cole exchange silly jabs at Kai between morsels of food. It seemed, in Lloyd's stead, they had decided someone needed to tease him. The two just smirked and kept at it.

"Jay, did you hear something?"

"Huh? Nah. Why, did you?"

"Yeah, I could've sworn … just now …"

"Weird. Maybe it's the voice of the fly on the bathroom wall that died waiting to be released because _Kai never actually comes out when he's supposed to!"_

"Alright, now you're just being unfair," Kai protested.

"Unfair? Your turn's always like, twice as long as everyone else's!"

"If I remember correctly," Zane chimed in, "we attempted a petition for Kai to have his own bathroom while we were still on the Bounty."

"Yeah, and it never flew, because there's no way you actually got Ronin and Dareth to sign it," Kai muttered pointedly. "And I _don't_ take that long. You try having hair like mine and see how long it takes you!"

"I'm pretty sure my hair's thicker _and_ longer." Cole idly moved a few strands of said hair out of his face. "And I still don't take nearly as long."

"... I still say you forged them! Or something."

Jay and Cole glanced at Kai, then at each other, and started to laugh. At the expression on Kai's face, Zane had to laugh, as well. Kai spread a hand over his face, exasperated, but then started chuckling as well.

"You guys are the _worst_ ," Kai grumbled, socking Jay's shoulder and then Cole's and smirking at their yelps. (He would've likely punched them both at the same time, except he really only had one useable arm.) "If you really wanna know what I was doing, I was spreading rumors about some underwater cryptid. Except really the cryptid's a Lloydfish, but the people of Ninjago don't need to know that."

"... A what now?"

"Don't ask. That's too many levels of inside joke to explain."

"Okay, anyway!" Cole then tried to broach another topic, having finished his sandwich. "Moving on from Mr. Porcupine there! Check-in before we tuck in for the night. Kai, how's the arm feeling?"

"Like I skewered it." He grimaced. "Hopefully it'll be okay, though."

"Acceptable answer. And no one else is hurt too badly?" Heads shook.

"Alright, great. Next topic: what's the plan for tomorrow? We're done for if we just wander around like we did today."

"Aw come on, Cole, who _cares_ ," Jay whined. "I don't wanna think right now. No one does! Can we just go over this when everyone else wakes up tomorrow?"

"But—" A jaw-splitting yawn cut Cole off, and he shot the simpering Jay a defeated glare. "Okay, fine, Zaptrap, you win. Tomorrow. But let's at _least_ go over what we learned. And for that, you get the honor of starting us off."

"What? Aww, fiiine. Okay, so … there's magic everywhere and it's messing with our devices," Jay ventured.

"Heh. Guess you could say there's magic in the air," Cole said, chuckling ruefully and thinking back to the last Day of the Departed they'd had. "But that's a start. What else … same magic's screwing around with our powers."

"This magic is also affecting how efficiently our bodies function." Zane piped up. Remembering what he would need to do soon, the others nodded.

"So also making it harder to fight, by extension," Kai added sourly. "And we're trapped with no way out."

And there was the reality they'd hoped not to think about for the night. He got a round of tired stares.

"You're going about this optimistically."

"Well, it's true, isn't it? Wouldn't wanna forget."

"Trust me, no one's forgetting," Cole huffed. "Now, where were we?"

"We came here in the first place for Shade, and he's not even here!" Jay said, crossing his arms.

"Which is concerning. But right now, our biggest concern should be escaping. We can't hide here indefinitely."

"Yeah, okay, Zane, but we still don't know where Lloyd and the others are," Kai reminded them. "And honestly, that's worse. With that spirit roaming around, who knows what could happen."

"But we killed it!" Jay protested. (He'd finally finished the last bite of his food.)

"Indeed, we watched it disappear." Zane agreed. "But perhaps we should be cautious anyways. If one unexpected thing can happen, so can another."

"So ... we should focus on finding the others, then hightailing it outta here." Cole said with an air of finality.

"But just one question. Sensei told us before we left that this place was once used as a shelter from the Anacondrai during the Serpentine Wars, right?"

"Oh, yeahh. Man, I can't believe we forgot to bring that up." Cole scratched his head for a second, thinking. "You think it has something to do with all of this?"

"If the Anacondrai were involved, probably," Kai said. "Those snakes have always been trouble magnets; first the war, then Chen trying to bring them back."

"It might explain why everything's such a wreck around here," Jay chimed in.

"Well, whatever the correlation is, we can look for it tomorrow."

"Hopefully, we'll be better rested then than we are now."

"Cool. Is that it for the night? Because I'm getting kinda tired." Jay fiddled with a small blue clock and replaced its batteries. "I'm gonna set this to eight hours from the time it's showing. Hopefully that works …"

"If it doesn't, my internal timer and alarm are still working," Zane assured him.

Once the last buzzes of wind-down activity and unpacking for the night were finished, it came time for all of them to get some shut eye.

" … I should power down for the night, I suppose."

"Yes," PIXAL urged. It seemed she was starting to become impatient. "You are running quite low because of how quickly you are draining before your power source can recharge itself. It needs to happen soon. When you are ready, I will start."

"Soo. How're we gonna do this … since Jay's keeping watch …" Cole thought a moment. "Some of us might have to share, since there's only two beds. And you and I probably won't fit in a bed, so … Kai, do you mind sharing?"

"I don't need a bed as much as you do," Zane protested. "I'll just take the floor."

Kai sighed. "Come on, we'll just trip over you when we get up or something. I don't mind sharing with you, Zane."

"Sharing a bed would be unconducive to preventing your arm from being crushed, as you brought up earlier. Nor would it do any good for Cole's habit of turning in his sleep. I'll just stay near the side."

"Are you _serious_ — we'll be fine! Za _ne._ " Kai pushed, ignoring Cole's miffed "Hey!"

Zane by this point had already settled himself into a corner near the front of the room. Kai sighed and dropped his forehead square onto his palm.

"Ooooor, that works too. Good night, I guess. Talk about stubborn."

"I would not be talking about stubborn if I were you, Kai. Goodnight, all of you."

"Night, tincan!" Another yawn. "And everyone else. And Kai, at least eat a mint before you go to bed." Cole was asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow. Kai, after another moment's exasperation, shook his head in Zane's direction and absently grabbed two tic-tacs, tossing them into his mouth. Jay hopped off and started rummaging through his bag.

"Hey, Zane." He glanced over at Jay. He was holding a small toolkit in his hand. "Can … I check your circuitry real quick? You know … electrical impulses might've done something. I wanna make sure for myself that it's just the power source causing problems and nothing else."

The request seemed odd, considering that PIXAL had already run a similar diagnostic. But then, PIXAL had mentioned difficulties accurately reading some parts because of the aforementioned magical interference. Letting Jay go through and double-check that everything was alright couldn't hurt. All the same, he was feeling a little hesitant about it …

He pulled open the latch that granted access to his chest panel, and Jay set to work. Once he was finished, Zane shut the panel.

"You're all good to go," Jay reassured him. "Those are all the checks I can do without any other tech to back me up, but everything other than the power source looks fine."

"Thank you, Jay. Goodnight, and be careful."

"You keep saying that," Jay huffed. He was smiling a little, though. "Night, Zane! Rest up."

* * *

As Jay walked off, PIXAL flickered back into his vision, evidently wanting to talk about something.

"I detect concern?"

Zane held back a sigh, and input an answer. Interfacing out loud wasn't promising for his privacy, even though Jay was the only other person awake.

"Everyone has been … strangely quick to lose resolve. Cole has been quite anxious all day, Kai's temper is wearing thin, and Jay seems very distracted when he thinks no one else is watching him. It's an unusual situation, definitely, but we are also trained ninja and it's concerning that we're coming undone so quickly."

PIXAL was quiet for a moment before she responded.

"I detected more than just concern. Perhaps even traces of fear?"

"What are you …"

"I detected high amounts of magic unevenly distributed throughout this mansion, but I also detected it elsewhere." She paused, maybe to let it sink in. "Namely, I felt it surrounding Jay."

That was enough to startle him into silence for a moment.

"But Jay has no knowledge of magic," he said feebly. "Are you sure you've read this correctly, PIXAL?"

"If you're so quick to doubt me, I can check again and show you myself."

"I … that won't be necessary." He mulled it over for a moment. "Are you implying that I should be afraid of Jay?"

"From what I can see, you already are. Or at least, you are afraid of the magic surrounding him."

"I remember how it feels. From … from Chen's Island. From Clouse. It was highly unpleasant." Suddenly he remembered what had been brought up earlier. "PIXAL, do you think … that this magic could originate from the first Serpentine War?"

She didn't respond immediately.

"It's a possibility. But this place was a refuge from Serpentine during the war. Where does magic come in?"

"Perhaps Clouse himself did something …?"

"Why go to that much effort for one shelter? It is not strategically sound."

"Or, perhaps another master of dark magic. Clouse cannot have been the only one. But it's nothing that can be proved …" Zane sighed. "Then it remains a mystery for now."

"Wherever it came from, it has the potential to be harmful. Zane, you must say something."

"I don't know if it would be a good idea to. After all, we are all already stressed over being locked in here; this sort of information could only alarm everyone more …"

"This is magic that we are dealing with! I understand you wish to avoid upsetting anyone, but he could be in danger and endangering everyone else without even knowing."

"... I'll try if there is an opening. But what if it only worsens matters?"

"Zane —"

"All of the magic we have seen so far has only brought bad news. If they know it's surrounding him ... they might not take it well."

"Tell Jay, at least! He deserves to know what's happening, even if you just wish to observe and see what happens from here on."

"I'll do it if I find an opening. I get the feeling that any confrontation otherwise will just make the tension worse." Maybe it was a remnant of the sixth sense he'd lost after being rebuilt kicking in again, but it was a strong feeling ...

Once again PIXAL paused.

"I cannot say I'm pleased with your decision. But I understand. Shall I start the shutdown now?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Initiating," she obeyed. "Complete shutdown of power in 3 ... 2 … 1 …"

Everything went dark. Jay's eyes flickered somberly as he settled uncomfortably into a chair near the door, the room cloaked in a darkness only pierced by the softly crackling fire.

* * *

An angry twinge abruptly shot through his arm, and Kai was rudely snapped out of his sleepy daze. With a pained hiss, his eyes flew open, and he rolled over, vainly grabbing at it with his free hand and waiting for the sharp throbbing to recede.

Blast it. He'd been so close to actually sleeping tonight.

Blowing hair out of his face, Kai let out a low, cross moan. He'd felt on edge all day, like he was walking a tightrope and falling off meant the dominoes started to tumble with no hope of righting themselves, and even now his mind was alert, whispering how things could still get worse. But his eyes were leaden and his limbs were slow and he'd _almost_ managed to relax enough to fall asleep. Until his stupid arm got in the way.

On the other bed was Cole, out like a rock and snoring softly — Kai was a little envious. His eyes wandered; there was Zane, with the light of the flames reflecting off of his metallic surface; the fireplace, crackling and warm but losing strength with the hour; and there, sitting in a chair near the entrance, was Jay.

He was pretty quiet, not softly whistling to himself or tapping his fingers on the nearest surface or doing anything else to preoccupy himself like he usually would be — he was barely moving at all, really, just staring at the door. It almost looked tranquil, but he looked so broody that it was a bit disconcerting.

So maybe he'd been a little harsh towards Jay earlier. But they couldn't face every single thing that was scary to them by running off, now, could they? And he'd gotten a sliced arm while Jay had gotten off scot-free physically, save a little tiredness. Still, the faint flicker of firelight sharpened the shadows on his face and made the stress of the day more prominent, and remorse started to poke at Kai. He was hardly blind to the fact that he was hard to be with when he got snappish, and when all of them were so anxious, it probably felt even worse to take.

… Eh, it wasn't like he was about to actually get any sleep tonight. Taking care that he didn't accidentally squish his arm again, he pulled off his blanket and placed his feet on the floor. At the first noise, Jay's head turned, and wordlessly, his eyes keenly followed Kai as he got up, walked over, and pulled over another chair from the table.

He sat down, waiting for a reaction. Anything besides just being watched. And then Jay spoke.

"Why're you up?" His voice was low, and flatter than he'd expected.

Kai shrugged.

"Can't sleep."

"But … aren't you tired?"

"Aren't you?" Kai retorted. Jay's stare lingered on his face for a moment more, before he returned to looking at the door. Kai felt himself suddenly unsettled, and not quite sure why that was the case.

"Nah. I'm pretty good."

Right. Like the word 'tired' wasn't just _written_ all over his face in big graffiti letters.

They were both quiet for a moment. And then:

"Go."

"Huh?" Jay blinked, perplexed.

"I'll take it from here."

"H-Hold on, what? No, go back to sleep —"

"Look," Kai sighed. "Forget what Zane said about resting my arm, or whatever. It hurts too much anyway and I can't fall asleep," he admitted. "So I might as well stay the rest of the night. Go get some rest." Jay was about to argue, and normally Kai would've been happy to oblige, but he was too exhausted to properly get into the spirit of it, had been all day. (And yet, not exhausted enough to sleep.) Before Jay could make a sound, he kept talking. "Seriously, you're not fooling anyone. Zane just let you take the shift because of my arm. _Go_."

"Alright, alright!" Moving his hands up in an "I surrender!" motion, Jay got up from the chair and walked off. "Night," he muttered. "Have fun staring at the door all night long. And now it's on me to explain why I even let you do this in the morning."

Kai only lasted a second staring after Jay's back before the persistent pinprick of malaise became too much and he had to say something.

"Hey, Jay."

Jay stopped mid-step and straightened. "Yeah?"

"Um …" Of course, now that he'd started to go through with it, he was fumbling. "I dunno, you just seem kinda … off? Is it about earlier, because uh, I'm not actually that mad about it, I was just annoyed, and I might've gotten a liittle mean—"

Jay turned around, and now Kai could see that he was flashing a wan grin at him. "Heheh, no, that's not it. Even then, I kinda earned it. I guess you're right and I _am_ tired … or this place just has me too creeped out to think straight. But, uh … thanks."

"Yeah, but still … sorry." A beat. "Okay but really, how did you and Zane _beat_ that thing? I tried fighting it and I just got," a dramatic wave of his bandaged arm here, "this."

"Of course _you_ did. What did you do, charge it head-on?"

"..." What was he supposed to say to that.

Jay barked a laugh, then noticed how loud it was and lowered his volume. Now there was something he was used to. "Typical."

"Hey now," Kai replied defensively, "You're hardly any better. And I wouldn't be talking about 'typical' behavior if I were you." Oh no. He regretted the words almost as soon as he'd said them. Maybe that was a little too mean, after everything else he'd said today.

Jay blinked for a moment. Then:

"Okayy, that's just low. I, at least, actually _fought_ it." Thankfully, he seemed to understand the jibe was in good nature and wasn't taking it too harshly. Which was great. Because Kai really didn't want to have to stutter out another guilt-fueled not-quite-apology-and-inquiry-as-to-wellbeing-rolled-into-one.

Tentatively, he kept teasing. "Do you mean you fought it or you ran around it screaming while Zane hit it?"

"H _EY_ , _I'll have you know I finished it off!"_ Jay's proclamation came in a ridiculous whisper-yell and an indignant finger to Kai's chest.

"Oh yeah? … Wait, did you?"

"Whaaat, you weren't listening when I explained this before?" Jay frowned, looking a little affronted, before talking again. "I jumped off the stairs and hit it on the head super hard! And then I just kinda … shocked it without remembering that we didn't have our powers. But hey, it worked!"

"Wow."

"Yeah. So hopefully we don't have to worry about anything tomorrow! … Unless a vampire shows up."

"Oh boy," Kai groaned, remembering his joke from earlier. "If that happens, then we're in trouble."

"Hmm. I wonder what we taste like to vampires."

Kai just looked at him for a few seconds. "Jay, what the _heck_."

"Whaaat? It's a legitimate question! Consider it. We're _Elemental Masters!_ Definitely not the average Joe."

"Let's just hope we're not their normal cuppa Joe, either."

"... _Kaiiii_."

"What? You started this stupid train of thought in the first place."

"That I did," Jay conceded, grinning and determined to keep the inevitable trainwreck moving. "But does the taste differ based on element? Oh man, I bet it does."

"Oh no, what if vampires like their meals extra-warm?" Kai groaned. "Then I'm toast."

"Eh, you probably taste like charcoal, if anything. Sizzling-hot charcoal, delicately seasoned with juice extracted straight from your brain," Jay said, voice giving away his amusement. "Hardly a vampire delicacy and certainly not for the faint-of-heart, only enjoyed by those most seasoned gastronomers."

" _Wow_." Was he supposed to feel insulted or amused? He wasn't sure. "What about you, huh, you think you taste much better?"

"I have no idea. For all anyone knows, lightning masters are the vampire version of Blue Razz Pop Rocks."

Kai snorted. "Pop Rocks are terrible."

"Riiiight, right, that's why you shoved 5 packets of the red ones into your face once. Clearly I must've imagined it." Jay had the world's worst poker face. Right now, he was doing a spectacularly poor job trying not to snicker.

"O-oh, for— shut up. We don't talk about that." He'd downed them with hot sauce, too.

Between him and the toilet, he was very glad he lived to regret that decision. The incident was right up there with the other unspeakable incidents he'd caused. There was the hot tamales incident, that one time with the exploded phone batteries …

After a moment of quiet, Kai took a moment to wonder at them — tired, not doing particularly well, up at an unholy hour, and stuck in some place they had no escape from — debating the specifics of how vampires found the taste of Elemental Masters, and started laughing into his hand. Evidently, Jay found it just as ridiculous, because he started snickering, too.

It felt … good. It was definitely the lightest he'd felt all day. But once it faded, the same deep unease came back with a vengeance. Kai sighed.

"Okay. That was … just go to sleep, Jay."

"Fiiiine." Jay was quiet for a second, and the playful petulance on his face fell back into something more sincere. "... Night, Kai. Be careful, okay?"

Well. That was a weird question to ask. It seemed everyone was reminding each other to be careful today.

"Alright." A beat. "You'd better switch the blanket. If I catch you using mine …"

"Okay, I will," Jay chuckled. "But you better be prepared to hunt around for your stuff in the morning."

"Fine. Night, Jay. And actually get some sleep; I didn't give up that bed for nothing."

As Jay blearily kicked his blanket out and pulled it up to his shoulders, Kai caught himself with a faint smile briefly pulling at his face. Then he remembered he'd just resigned himself to keeping watch all night and sighed.

Well. It was worth it, for the people snoring away on the beds — and the stubborn powered-down nindroid in the corner. Him too.

Kai shifted in the antique chair, slinging his injured arm over the back and trying to make himself comfortable. It would be a long night.

* * *

This time, it was his own jerking muscles that kept him from completely dozing off. With a start, Kai's eyes flew open and he hastily yanked himself upright, and then winced as his arm roughly hit the back of the chair and the angry throbbing started anew. If exhaustion had come that close to overcoming his buzzing mind, then he was going to feel absolutely _lousy_ when morning properly rolled around. But there was no sleeping now. He'd signed up for this.

Judging by the much-diminished fire, he'd been swimming in and out of consciousness for a while now. Shaking off the grogginess the best he could, he carried his chair over to the fireplace and poked at a few scraps of cloth that hadn't yet burned through with a stick. At the rate it was burning, it wouldn't last another hour; he would have to use more kindling after all.

Kai lazily grabbed a fistful of wood pieces and flung them in. When the small, smoldering flames didn't immediately spread, he set his hand alight the best he could and strengthened the flames himself. Satisfied, he carelessly dropped himself back into the chair, (not bothering to sit comfortably or watch the arm, since it hurt anyway) and basked in the warmth, a welcome relief from the chill.

Now that he'd used his power a bit, his blood was flowing a little better. That, and the soreness, would ensure he wouldn't be nodding off again.

But now that he'd really woken up, he was all too aware of how quiet it was — his ears, ringing and sensitive from the silence, felt starkly even the softest noises. But they were masked by some louder ones, like his friends snoring. The fire had gotten comfortingly louder since he'd put kindling in it, the crackling intensifying as the flames licked at the wood. Kai watched the light, orange and yellow, dance off the walls and around the fire, and just breathed, in and out, to the flickering of the flames; he paid mind only to the sounds stirring the otherwise silent room: the popping and snapping of the fire he'd created and the soft whistle of his breath and the thudding of his heart and the snoring coming from the beds his friends were sleeping on. (Well, two of them, anyway.)

It was deceptively tranquil, was almost enough to make him feel better, but the scraps of comfort were fleeting and try to maintain his grasp as he might, they were still slipping away and leaving him to deal with thoughts that would do no one any good, as well as a stifling stillness that he could almost cut through with a butter knife.

All in all, it felt like there was a blanket wrapped too tightly around him and squeezing at the heart, suppressive and uncomfortable, and so suffocating that any attempt to do something about it died in his throat before he could even try. It was, even with everything he could hear, too quiet. There wasn't enough to distract from his spiking nervousness, and it only sent him more on edge. Sinister shadows lay at the edge of the very same flames that had been so calming only minutes before, and even the heat slowly seeping into his skin was only marginally helpful. With every sound he didn't recognize, his eyes darted around, searching for a source.

The firelight reflected off of Zane's titanium shell and made it glint, catching his eye.

Zane. Kai knew, of course, he'd be up and running again in the morning, but it did little to put the uneasiness pooling up in him to rest. Jay barely even looked asleep for how much subtle shifting and tossing he was doing, and Cole, while clearly asleep, still managed to look tense. One day and they were already ridiculously drained, with no sign of Shade or the other three people who were supposed to show, trapped with no exit. Were they really going to make it out, or would the spirit from today get to them first?

He shuddered at the memory of the cold, misty, razor-sharp claws tearing through his arm that afternoon. If it returned (and it would probably return — there was no way it had been finished in one battle), any fight they picked against it would be a difficult one. Their powers were back, but they were weak and incomplete. And speaking of powers … he'd been so sure earlier when he'd contradicted Jay's fears, but he was now having second doubts. Lloyd, Skylor and Karlof had gone before them. They'd even texted back that the mansion was in the right place and they could come! And suddenly they'd gone completely off the radar and there was a murderous abomination of a spirit-esque monster roaming the place.

And Shade was supposed to be alive after facing that for … over a month. Right. Of course. What even the Elemental Master of Shadow had supposedly come here for, it better have been a good reason.

Really, they should just call the mission off and leave tomorrow. Or today. The old pocketwatch his father had left him had gone completely haywire with all the other time-telling devices as soon as they'd stepped foot in the mansion, so who knew. Too bad they couldn't actually leave. They were stuck, and they'd have to find the other group. The hope that they hadn't run into anything they couldn't handle burned in his chest.

He could hear his heart pounding uncomfortably fast now. His fingers were tingling, and it wasn't just the cold. Unease strengthened and coiled tighter in his stomach, leaving room for frustration to well up. Dang it all, he'd been fine just a little while before, so why, even when there was nothing that could reach them now, was he so tense? Why did he feel so helpless, so …

Trapped?

They had to get out.

And now he was dwelling on the worst, as he tended to do. Miserable at their current odds, Kai pushed his bangs out of his eyes and ran his fingers through mussed brown hair.

A moment later, he stiffened and suddenly righted himself, eyes wide and alert, heart skipping a beat.

What … was that noise?

* * *

 _You cannot easily set foot into that_ _m_ _ysterious_ _mansion near those villages._

* * *

Gravel and leaves crunched underfoot. Weak beams of light hit the floor in soft puddles through the dense foliage covering the sky above them.

"Well, it looks like this is it." Blond hair spilled out as the hood holding it down was removed. Wary green eyes swept over the battered façade of the mansion, and Lloyd was instantly struck with the sense that something was wrong. His stomach was churning uneasily, and gut instincts, especially when you were the seasoned green ninja, usually didn't fail.

* * *

 _Because if you anger its sole occupant, you will not get away lightly._

* * *

"Certainly looks like the kind of place people will warn you away from," Skylor remarked from next to him. "No wonder this mansion's just been left rotting around for ages the way it has, when all the villagers are so paranoid."

"I'm starting to wonder if they didn't have a point," Lloyd muttered. Ah well. No matter how unsettled he was, they had to keep going. It was the best lead they had on Shade, and if they left before even taking a look inside, they would be doing him a disservice. Even the few elemental masters who were friends with the usually-aloof Master of Shadow, and therefore knew his habits, had expressed concern at how he'd seemingly dropped off of the face of the continent. And if Skylor wanted to host an elemental reunion, it would be best if all of them could make it.

Besides, Lloyd had met up with his current companions that morning in the nearest village to this mansion, and they'd walked for hours through foliage so dense that summoning a dragon or trying any motor-fueled mode of transport was a hopeless endeavor, only able to stop at the interspersed clearings that housed small villages. It'd just be silly _not_ to go in after all that.

"There's something very strange in the air …" Skylor said, eyes narrowed. "But I can't place my finger on what it is. Anyone else?"

"Oh, absolutely," Lloyd said, relieved that he wasn't the only one with misgivings.

"Feels funny. Too cold. And villagers are sure Shade come this way?" Karlof piped up. He, too, did not looked pleased.

"He has a point. Of all the places to disappear off to, why a former wartime shelter?" Skylor added.

"I mean. No offense to Shade or anything, but for the Master of Shadow, he's pretty conspicuous." Lloyd snorted. "If they recognized the description we gave them, then they probably led us the right way."

"Hm. And they were kind enough to give us a warning, too," Skylor added wryly.

"Speaking of warnings." Lloyd pulled his backpack to his chest, fished out his phone, and started tapping out a message into his group chat.

 **Lloyd [5:43 pm]:** I think we've found the place they were talking about yesterday  
 **Lloyd [5:43 pm]:** but it's really weird

 **Lloyd [5:43 pm]:** just be careful when you get here, okay

A bubble popped up under his message, and a second later, so did a reply.

 **Kai [5:44 pm]:** nice  
 **Kai [5:44 pm]:** and right back u lloyd  
 **Kai [5:44 pm]:** keep us posted

 **Lloyd [5:45 pm]:** I will

 **Kai [5:46 pm]:** btw, what're his friends up to

 **Lloyd [5:46 pm]:** they're too busy to trek all the way to an old mansion  
 **Lloyd [5:47 pm]:** so apparently they're just searching the area near his hometown instead

 **Kai [5:48 pm]:** huh  
 **Kai [5:48 pm]:** good luck

 **Lloyd [5:48 pm]:** thanks

Then he tucked his phone away and turned towards the waiting Skylor and Karlof. Kai and the rest of the ninja were still at the village Lloyd had come from this morning.

(Rest of the ninja minus Nya, that was. She'd sprained her ankle a while back on a mundane mission gone wrong, and while it'd almost completely healed, they'd decided there was no point in risking it with the amount of trekking through forest it took just to get to the destination.)

That confirmation of the mansion's location was the other ninja's cue to join up with them — and hopefully, if they'd already found Shade by then, they could just turn back around and call it a day.

"Well, what we still waiting for?" Karlof huffed impatiently, heading for the door. It turned out to be a lot heavier than anticipated and he put his weight into forcing it open. "Let's get searching over with. Don't like this place one bit."

"I hear you," Skylor grunted, moving to help him out. "This had better be quick. Something gives me the feeling we shouldn't stick around any longer than we need to."

Lloyd lingered a moment longer, taking in everything around where he was standing. The looming, grandiose building was awe-inspiring, and not in the strictly positive sense, either.

Something, indeed.

"Come on. I just hope Shade's alright." He walked in at last, and the door creaked shut behind them.

The little sunlight that made its way to the forest floor through the thick canopy winked out.

* * *

… _Once you step inside, you will never return._

* * *

 **(A/N): Casual headcanon that Cole and Zane are … taller than Kai and Jay … so they wouldn't fit in the same bed ... yeah …**

 **Also. kinda eventful chapter. They're well and truly stuck, guys. :3**


	6. Bellua

**A/N: Hey, look who's dubiously alive! Happy Thanksgiving.  
Man, I feel like _shit._ Hope you guys are faring better.  
But hey, at least NaNoWriMo's chugging along! I haven't thrown in the towel yet, go me. Skimped out on and half-assed a lot of days, but I'm still trying.  
**

 **RandomDragon: Man, same. I'm a huge wimp. These guys are way braver than me. :')  
** **Thank you! I love Kai, too. So much. My favorite is Jay, but Kai's a really close second.  
 _Doesn't make him any easier to write, tho_  
**

* * *

The grand foyer was massive.

The space was punctuated by small tables, and empty vases, and damaged items strewn about. The dim light streaming in through barred windows glinted off the broken crystals of a damaged chandelier hanging from the tall ceiling, and illuminated the old room. It was easy to tell that the whole place had been quite grand, once upon a time, yet everything around them now was run-down and not quite right and Lloyd only found his wariness spiking.

"You feel that too?" Skylor asked.

Lloyd nodded. "I dunno what it is, but something's definitely off. Stay alert, guys. I know the plan was to split up to cover more ground, but we're probably safer sticking together."

Next to him, Karlof tightened his heavy, gleaming gauntlets.

* * *

"Cole! Cole, wake up!" A frantic whisper and a hand shaking his arm snapped him awake. His heart skipped a beat, spiking fearfully, before he recognized the hazy shape in front of him and calmed himself.

Cole had already had a rough night. He'd fallen asleep fast and deep, but later in the night, he'd woken up, stomach all in knots and sweat beading on his forehead, before closing his eyes and trying to fall asleep again. And now, Jay was hurriedly shaking the life out of him trying to wake him up. Confusion quickly gave way to irritation.

He groaned and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Whaddya _want_ , Jay?"

The blue ninja was talking a mile a minute, voice high-pitched and nervous, and it was difficult to make out much of what he was saying. A small ball of lightning in his hand was the only thing letting Cole's eyes see — the fireplace had gone out overnight. A faint worry started to replace the annoyance he'd felt at being woken up.

"Whoa, okay. Slow down; I can't understand a thing you're saying! Actually, no," he said, fumbling his way onto the floor, "wake Kai and get Zane up and running first. Whatever it is, I'm sure they want to hear, too."

"Already on it." Jay had teased open the panel on Zane's chest and, carefully bringing his lit palm close enough to see the internal wiring and controls, he rebooted the system. With a sharp, mechanical _whirr_ , Zane's processors came reanimated, and glowing blue eyes snapped open.

"Morning, Zane," Jay said hurriedly as he pressed the panel shut again, not giving Zane a chance to even ask any questions. "I know, your alarm didn't go off yet and all, but we don't have time to sleep."

"What's _wrong,_ Jay?" Cole asked, wishing he would just cut to the chase. "And where's Kai? Any reason that this doesn't concern him?"

"That's the problem," Jay fretted. "I can't find Kai!"

"What!?" This in unison.

"What do you mean, you 'can't find Kai'?" Cole asked, his rising dread kicking him awake in earnest. "Weren't you the one who stayed up to keep watch!?"

"Yes," Zane agreed, "you should have been able to see anything that happened to Kai, right?"

"I waaas," Jay whimpered. "I was! But Kai woke up halfway through the night and tried to take over my shift."

"And you _let him!?"_ Cole howled. Jay flinched at his rising voice.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry! But he basically coerced me into it!"

"Coerced?" Zane asked, bewildered.

"He said something about his arm keeping him up. And he was really insistent about it." Jay murmured.

"I _told_ him to rest it … But where could he have gone?" Zane pondered. "It's not at all safe to be wandering around alone. Even the time I spent by myself yesterday was highly risky."

"So he just _vanished_ into the night! Great. Why would he do that? What if something happened to him? Jay, how could you let him do that?" Cole almost felt bad for being so pushy when Jay clearly felt bad, but his incredulousness won.

"I _tried_ to tell him to go back to bed!" Jay insisted. "But he wouldn't listen to me!" He sighed. "And I tried to stay awake anyway so I could watch him, but I … guess I really was tired after all. I missed him leaving."

"So how come you're up now?" Cole asked.

" … Nightmare woke me."

Oh. That he could actually sympathize with.

For a moment, they were all silent, Jay's nervously quick breathing punctuating the quiet. Cole wondered— he'd been quick to close his eyes and try to fall back asleep when he'd startled awake, but how could he have possibly missed that?

"You know what?" Cole sighed at length. "Zane, there was some kinda lamp on that table there, right? Can we use it?" Zane checked, informing them that it was a kerosene lamp and that the oil, while not the clearest, would probably burn well enough for their purposes. Jay quickly pulled a match out under the light of Zane's eyes and lit it.

"Alright. Obviously, we can't go back to sleep, so we're gonna have to figure out something from here. It's time for that plan."

* * *

With a sigh, Lloyd pulled shut the door to what looked like it had been a kitchen.

"No one here, either."

"Why Shade come to stupid, far-away mansion, anyway?" Karlof questioned impatiently. "Just worry his friends and waste our time …"

"He has a point," Skylor said. "I had to postpone the reunion because of Shade. And I spent _months_ accounting for everyone's schedules." She shook her head and sighed.

"Whatever his reason, it better have been a good one." Lloyd definitely understood the irritation. "Let's just … keep looking."

And so they did. This floor seemed to be mostly expansive corridors and halls, but aside from that there was the kitchen Lloyd had just finished going through, a nearby dining hall, a small room that looked to be some kind of study, and an absolutely huge room, consisting of smaller rooms, lined with paintings and statues and any other type of art that you could think of. That one was actually pretty impressive, and as a cool bonus he could recognize some of the scenes and people of old depicted, although the state of disarray it was in dampened its glory a little.

There were a few doors that wouldn't budge no matter how much they pulled, though. And this seemed to be another one of them — even Karlof couldn't seem to get it open.

Brushing it off, Lloyd swept their surroundings and stiffened, before looking back, relaxing, and continuing onwards with a sigh.

More than once, he could've sworn he'd seen something laying around, could've sworn he caught something moving out of the corner of the eyes, or a person, or _something_. But there was always nothing — or at least, nothing worth touching or taking special note of.

He was acutely aware of Skylor and Karlof exchanging glances every time he did it — sure, after the first few times they'd gotten used to it and stopped asking questions, but he was pretty certain they thought he was losing it.

Honestly, he wouldn't be awfully surprised if he was.

Idly, he noticed how dim the light streaming in had gotten, and hummed, considering something.

"Say, it's getting pretty late, right?"

"Yes, and?"

"So … maybe he's spending the night? There was a huge staircase in the main room, we could go up there."

"You could be onto something," Skylor said. "Sound like a plan, Karlof?"

No response.

"... Karlof?" Lloyd called tentatively.

"Oh no." Skylor's eyes widened. A sweep of the hallway they were in showed no sign of the man.

* * *

"This is incredible," Lloyd said, shaking his head and throwing his hands up. "I knew something was really off about this place, but I didn't think anything'd happen _this_ quickly."

"And yet," Skylor sighed. "How does a person his size just _vanish_ , anyway?"

"And where could he have gone? We already scoured this entire floor. Twice!" Once per each missing elemental master. At this rate, Lloyd was really hoping no one else decided to go missing.

"What do you think the chances are that he just decided to leave?" Skylor said sardonically.

"I doubt it," Lloyd sighed. "If he's not here, then we find the nearest stairs and go up. Who knows, we might find Shade there, too." The shadows had lengthened considerably — it must've been close to nightfall. He formed a small green energy ball in his hands. It came to life with a faint hum, power wobbling unsteadily for a moment before stabilizing and brightening.

Hm. Odd. For now, he ignored it.

They walked quietly for a bit, alert and looking around, on the off chance that Karlof popped up from behind a wall and, oh, maybe threw confetti in their faces. (No such thing happened.) Then Lloyd came to an abrupt stop.

"Hey, what —" Skylor started, but he held up a hand to silence her and strained his ears.

There. He'd thought at first he was just hearing things that weren't there again, or reacting to the sound of their footsteps, but the same low rumble he'd picked up before vibrated in the air, pausing and then growing louder.

From the way she tensed up next to him, Skylor had definitely caught it this time. She exchanged an unsettled glance with Lloyd, and there was a subtle _k-shhink!_ and assorted clicks and scrapes as they readied their respective weapons.

Whatever that noise had been, it definitely didn't sound human. And the ominous shadow starting to flit across the wall certainly didn't look the part, either. A low whistle pierced the suddenly-chilly air faintly tugging at their clothes. With little warning, swirling bursts of a dark matter he didn't recognize materialized into a huge, grotesque creature that looked vaguely ghost-like. That is, if you were to take a ghost, dunk it in all the colors of paint you had on hand, coat it in black glass, and give it a few extra … every external body part you could think of. The mangled wreck of eyes and mouths and limbs dripping bits of itself onto the floor was a little nauseating. On the list of the things that went bump in the night, this had to be pretty up there in terms of creepiness factor.

"What _is_ that? Do you have any idea what it is?" Skylor asked from his right, quiet horror seeping into her voice. Lloyd shook his head.

"All I know is that it's probably not friendly."

It was advancing hostilely now, crouched animalistically on its legs with its back to the ceiling — next to it, they probably looked like ants. The rumble was now a tortured chorus of moaning and screeching, vaguely reminiscent of the Preeminent crossed with an entire room of Darkley's kids screaming at the top of their lungs.

Not a pleasant combination.

Lloyd's free hand went flying up, trying to block out the ear-grating sound, before he got accustomed and reluctantly peeled it away. And with each disfigured, claw-tipped hand that hit the floor and dragged it forward, it was speeding up — right towards them.

"The door, on three!" They both hurriedly counted down. On three, Skylor made a mad dash through the hallway, Lloyd on her heels and sneaking a glance behind him to check the abomination's location. Once they made it to the main door, they pushed it with force.

Only one problem: It wouldn't budge.

Throwing themselves against the door did precious little to help. As did trying to attack the hinges so it would break off. Lloyd was left dumbfounded when even straight-up firing a ball of green power into the door only left it damaged and a little charred.

"You cannot be _serious_ right now!" Skylor hissed, nervously pulling at the handles.

"Well," Lloyd said grimly, "at least we know Karlof didn't ditch us."

"Comforting. What's plan B?"

"We gotta get away from it!" Wildly, Lloyd looked around. Where to go, where to go …

"The nearest corridor!" Skylor suggested. "Maybe we can find someplace to hide!"

Another harsh scream rang out, terrifyingly close. It was almost in striking distance and getting ready to attack.

"... No."

"What? Lloyd, have you lost your mind?"

"No, but I have changed it. Think!" He backed away from the door and towards a corridor. "It's clearly bent on getting a piece of us. If we run, it'll keep chasing. If we hide, none of these doors have locks; it can break in on us. We'll have to face it eventually."

"So you're saying we should show it who's boss instead."

"Exactly." He took a breath to calm his nerves and let resolute focus settle in its place. "Get ready for a fight."

The hoods went up over their heads now, and Lloyd pulled on his mask, feeling the same rush of determination and adrenaline he always did when it was time to get down to business.

With barely any warning, an arm shot forward, narrowly missing the both of them. They leapt out of the way, landing on opposite sides of the creature, weapons drawn.

It was time to get serious.

* * *

A while later, things were looking much more grim, and they hadn't even been that optimistic to start with. Lloyd had discovered that his powers were actually quite effective in temporarily rebuffing the spirit and actually seemed to do some damage, but between attacking, deflecting its swipes at him with his katana, jumping out of the way, and occasionally leaping to Skylor's aid, he was beginning to tire.

Skylor, on the other hand, didn't even have the advantage of powers, but she'd been doggedly shooting arrows into the creature's eyes until it had knocked her crossbow down and _broken_ it. Lloyd was stuck leaping in front of it and trying to distract it as Skylor made a beeline for the kitchen and rummaged around for knives to use as projectiles instead. She'd come out a while later holding a handful of slightly rusty and probably dull knives, and was making do, throwing them at its eyes and overall trying to hit as many weak spots as possible while Lloyd bombarded it with energy balls. It was going at them with everything it had, mouths snapping, arms and legs scratching and smacking and pushing, all the while screeching and groaning.

"I'm almost out of knives!" Skylor shouted over the spirit's moaning. "How much longer until we actually put a dent in this thing?"

"It already kinda looks like it's coming unglued! Maybe this won't be too much longer." It did, too. Every so often, its form shifted and stretched out in a pretty gross manner, like there was an animal inside it trying to free itself.

"I dunno, I kinda don't wanna make any bets on 'maybe'."

Lloyd just grunted and jumped away as an ugly hand came down on the spot he'd been standing on, _hard._ His arm was beginning to ache from the amount of swinging it was doing, just trying to keep himself from getting clawed open. Skylor got pushed back behind him, skidding to a stop and panting. His own breath was coming in short, sharp bursts. This wasn't good; if something didn't give soon, the fight felt like it might drag on an eternity, and he didn't have that kind of time or stamina.

Then, a knife whizzed past him and rather firmly lodged itself into a spot on their attacker's chest. Judging by the deafening racket the spirit was making, it was a sensitive area, and an incredible shot, considering how many arms there were defending its chest.

"Nice hit!" Lloyd called.

Skylor acknowledged it with a grunt, then lept out of the way of the spirit hitting back. But it was especially angry now, and no sooner had she landed than multiple arms lashed out. Skylor went flying, and before Lloyd had time to help her up, it rematerialized near her, roughly grabbing her by the hood and repeatedly flinging her into a wall. Lloyd winced as she screamed, straining to get up and then falling limp.

He was running now, twin spheres of energy flaring to life and being fired off as fast as he could make them. Jumping in front of Skylor and planting himself in a defensive position, he readied another attack and braced himself for the long haul against the beast about to bear down on him.

"Skylor?" He got a weak groan in response. Okay, good, she wasn't out cold; that meant that she probably wasn't severely injured. "I'll cover you, so stay put!"

"Trust me," she muttered, curling in on herself, "I wasn't about to do much else."

This wasn't good. He was wearing thin, and worse, having to protect Skylor meant he'd just lost most of his mobility. Muttering a word he probably shouldn't have known, he fired a blast of energy and felt a grim satisfaction at the way it stumbled back and yelled. The spirit only stayed still for a moment, regaining its bearings, before crawling forward, slowly at first and then with more determination. It never stopped growling, but it sounded more pained now.

Good. He was wearing it down, then.

Any sense of time passing was nonexistent as the battle dragged on, Lloyd dodging what he could and beating back what he couldn't. Sword in his right and fistful of energy in his left, he slashed at any arms that tried to get a chunk out of him, struck its eyes and fired beams of light into its mouths when it got a bit close for comfort. He was trying desperately to keep it from getting too close; after all, he was doing the fighting for two. But despite how banged up and unstable the spirit looked, it looked to be gaining the upper hand, encroaching closer and closer each time before being driven away by a mixture of Spinjitzu and his powers. His attacks were beginning to get sloppy, too, and an array of cuts and scratches littering his body stung fiercely, not helped by the sweat getting into them. The ugly shrieks it made each time he got a hit in were making his head hurt, too.

Puffing with exertion, he tucked into Spinjitzu and twirled right into the spirit. As it skidded back, he stepped away to catch his breath, pushing hair out of his eyes, and quickly looked down at Skylor, shooting her a sympathetic wince. Her hair was caked with blood — that was obviously going to smart later.

A roar brought his attention shooting back to the creature rearing back up — it was clearly tired too, torn-up and ripped and fading in places where particularly strong attacks had made their marks, with translucent gashes dripping strange, misty essence where he and Skylor had stabbed. It was also stretching apart wildly, as if it'd come apart any moment now. But its aggression hadn't seemed to come down a single notch, and it came tromping back with unexpected speed, closing the small gap quickly. A second's stumble cost him, sending his katana clattering onto the floor, and ice-cold claws ripped through the fabric of his gi and scraped across his clavicle. Gasping, Lloyd swung his pack at it, temporarily knocking it back. Then he jabbed outwards with his fists, sending bursts of green shooting all over the place, and crashed to the floor next to Skylor. Quickly, he scrambled back up, and lit his fists again, moving his arms around him and leaving sparkling trails of green light in their wake.

There was blood starting to well up where he'd been hit, and the sharp edge of pain was making his vision swim. Gritting his teeth, he tried to shake it off. The energy he'd put up around himself had singed the spirit and made it shy away, but now it was starting to come creeping back, and the rudimentary shield wouldn't last much longer.

And as much as he didn't want to admit it, neither would he.

At last, the spirit pushed back too hard for him to hold, and his knees buckled. Before it could nail him again, he scurried back like a crab, watching it loom ever-closer with its screech grating at his ears.

This was it. They could run, but his exhaustion would make him slow. Skylor was in the same boat but worse, and he'd walk into the Underworld backwards before he left her to be finished off. So there was only one thing left to do — fight like a madman.

He took as deep a breath as his heaving chest would let him, resigning himself to his fate.

Then a pair of shurikens descended right onto the spirit's head and exploded.


	7. Lost and Found

**(A/N): It's only been ... a million years! Whoops, sorry. And I meant to upload this earlier, but then FFN had to go and _break._ Perfect timing, right?  
So yeah, it's been forever ... and I'm sorry. ^^; I really appreciate the patience. Honestly, I have a bunch of back-up chapters after this, all the way from NaNoWriMo, but I've been stalling super hard on revising. It's so hard ... and I keep picking and adding and removing specific elements of plot and this is hard, guys. :T  
Also, I've gone and added more comprehensive content warnings to the A/N in chapter 1, if anyone's interested!  
This chapter's a doozy, though. Whoo! I hope it makes up for the wait! Sorry if it doesn't, but without further ado ... **

* * *

The sound of a door creaking shut echoed for a moment before dying away.

Zane sighed. They'd been here not even a day, and already this — searching for what should have already been with them, trying to keep the pieces together— was beginning to feel worrisomely familiar.

"He isn't over there, either," Cole called, hastily striding over to him. From his tense gait and the set of his jaw, it was clear that he was ill at ease being out in the open, unprotected expanse of hallways.

Zane understood.

They'd been in the open yesterday, too, after all.

And look what had happened.

"You wouldn't happen to have been any luckier, have you?" Cole asked hopefully. In the dim light their flashlights cast, Zane almost didn't catch the subtle way Cole's face fell when he shook his head.

"We'll just have to keep looking, then," Cole resolved, moving further down the hallway. Zane fell into step behind him. He would have been using the light beams from his eyes to illuminate the space in front of them, but PIXAL had already warned him that he had not charged nearly enough over the few hours they'd had and likely did not have the energy to expend on non-essential functions.

The flashlight would have to suffice.

"Huh. Where is Jay?" Cole waved the light in his hand around as he walked. "I figured he'd have met up with us by now; the only rooms we checked were the ones in this hallway."

"It definitely should not take so long. Perhaps he's on his way now."

"I hope you're right, for all our sakes. I … don't know what we'll do if he's missing, too." Despite Cole's attempt to keep his voice steady, Zane could hear the unsettled uncertainty behind it — uncertainty that he shared — and felt a quiet admiration for his brother.

He was afraid, Zane knew. Of this place, of their circumstances. Of what was unfolding in front of their eyes. And yet he was trying to be resolute and focus on the situation at hand for their sakes.

It was incredibly brave of him.

"I'm certain he's alright." Granted, he didn't entirely believe it himself. But he tried to maintain the conviction, for both of them.

A few more steps. Zane held his hand out in front of Cole, stopping him from moving. At the other's questioning look, he wordlessly pointed his light at a large, jaggedly torn section of the wooden floor, and waggled his finger in a semicircle. Move around it. Cole nodded, and they both carefully trod around the damaged floor, yet another reminder to the shoddiness of the building they were trapped in.

"So. We have the entire left half of this floor left to poke our heads into," Cole started at length. "And so far, no sign of Kai. What kind of abyss did he disappear into last night?"

"A ridiculously hard-to-find one," a familiar voice grumbled.

Both of them turned at once.

"Jay!"

"What took you so long?" Cole immediately started. "We were starting to think you'd gotten into trouble or something!"

"Psh." Jay waved a dismissive hand. "Me, trouble?"

Two unimpressed looks were shot his way. Jay looked like he wanted to protest, but after a moment he shut his mouth and grudgingly muttered, "That's fair."

"He has a point, though, Jay," Zane said. "Did something hold you up?"

"Nah, I was just looking around for Kai. I musta searched every other unlocked room on this floor," the blue ninja declared.

They froze for a moment.

… Jay had never been meant to go into _all_ the rooms.

Zane voiced this. Cole followed up emphatically.

"Mind telling me exactly what you were _thinking?"_

"So I got a little too caught up looking," Jay said flippantly. "So what? That's less rooms to search."

Cole's eyes flashed.

"That's not how it works! There's a reason we stuck to this hallway first. Did yesterday teach you nothing?"

"Relaaax, would you?" Jay grumbled. Cole's frown deepened.

"Relax? We're in a creepy haunted mansion, and you're an _idiot,_ apparently. " Cole elbowed him none too gently, and Jay toppled over with a theatrical cry. "Not you, Zane, you're good. You on the other hand — oh come off it, I didn't hit you that hard — are doing nothing to ease my concerns. What if something had happened to you?"

"Well, nothing happened," Jay huffed, pulling himself up and brushing his gi off. "I'm perfectly a-ok; you can quit worrying now."

"And you're so sure of that, aren't you?" Cole's tone had taken on an agitated edge, and Jay's face remained a stony glower. Zane nervously glanced between the both of them. "Because if you're gonna be so reckless, I wouldn't be."

"Reckless? I'm making this that much faster for us!" Jay bit back sharply. "We don't have to search nearly as many rooms this way! If you're going to talk about reckless, you really oughta spare a thought for —" Jay's voice wavered. "For _Kai."_

He would look neither of them in the eye as he whirled on his heel and hurried onward.

Zane blinked and stared after Jay's curled shoulders, taking a moment to process what he had just witnessed play out.

Kai? He had definitely been reckless yesterday, charging the spirit head-on. But somehow, that didn't seem to be what Jay was referring to.

Was Kai reckless to take over Jay's watch, or whatever it was that had led to him going missing? Was Jay upset that, as he himself had put it, Kai had coerced him into it? But Zane had not been present last night to see exactly how everything had gone down. And it felt like more than that. More like what he was upset about …

"Well?" Jay halted briefly and turned towards them, his voice low and deliberately flat. "Are you coming or not?"

… was that he'd let himself be coerced.

* * *

"When are you going to tell him?" PIXAL flickered into being on his screen.

The only room left to search on this floor was the large hall with several art pieces on display — the art gallery, as Jay had called it. So Jay and Cole had gone in to look, and Zane had volunteered to keep a watch for anything strange outside.

"Not yet," Zane sighed. "The issue of Kai having gone missing is obviously weighing very heavily on everyone's minds. Now is not a good time to bring it up."

PIXAL didn't respond at first. Then:

"Very well, Zane. I understand. But soon, please." Then the pixels giving her form on his monitor vanished.

Dust shifted on the floor, softly lit. Zane's eyes traveled to the nearest window — when they had begun searching, it had been completely dark, but now hints of soft blue were beginning to tinge the sky. Daybreak would be soon.

Then, quickly, his head shot up. He'd heard noises, and they hadn't been from the gallery. He wondered if it would be wise to leave the two to search. But he couldn't just ignore what he was hearing, could he? It could be important, perhaps even something relating to Kai, or a sign of trouble, or …

He felt slightly guilty wandering off in such a dangerous place. He would just have to be quick.

Following the noise led him to the interior balcony that overlooked the first floor. He looked down, and his eyes widened.

* * *

It hadn't been a difficult decision, really.

There was little time to stop and think when his little brother was in so big a predicament. So he'd tossed down two shuriken and his backpack to buy himself time, jumped, and spun right onto the spirit's head. Then he stabbed some of its eyes with a knife, jumped out of the way and grabbed onto the balustrade of the stairs before it could hit him back, and smoothly slid the rest of the way down on the railing before landing.

The spirit's attention was completely on him now.

"Zane!" A relieved voice cried.

He took in how worn Lloyd looked. The other ninja had been fighting alone for a while, and it showed, with the state of his gi and the sweat glistening on his skin. With some concern, he noticed Skylor holding her head next to him.

Then he looked back to the spirit, which was visibly near the end of its line.

He'd been so _certain_ that he and Jay had finished it off yesterday. He'd spoken too soon, then.

Perhaps it could regenerate? Or maybe that was not the case, and there were just multiple such spirits roaming the area.

Neither option was particularly palatable.

"Lloyd! It's good to see you," he greeted the other ninja, with a twirl of his shuriken. "And I do believe you've done quite a number on this spirit. Allow me to finish it off for you."

"Gladly," Lloyd panted, letting his back hit the wall. "I'm not sure what you're doing here so soon, but … boy am I glad to see you right now."

"We can discuss that later! There's a lot to catch up on. But for now … !" He let himself trail off, aiming shuriken at the spirit's eyes and into its mouth. It cried out angrily as they exploded, and the sound was just as he remembered from yesterday. But it sounded so tortured … he winced, but reminded himself to be resolute, and kept attacking.

It had been very close to seriously hurting Lloyd, after all.

For just a few seconds, a carpet of eyes, shimmering with malice, all stared right into his own, and he felt keenly that it recognized him, somehow.

Was this the same spirit, then, capable of regeneration?

It was moving to claw at him with its legs now, and Zane twisted into Spinjitzu and spun out of its way, his sapped energy starting to make itself known. (While he would likely last the rest of the day with what was left of his stores, recharging so little couldn't become a habit.)

It was a close call — for a terrifying instant, he was far too close to its chest looming _above_ him, long, foggy arms lashing out and hitting anything unlucky enough to be in their path. Maybe he could get in a damaging blow —

Blade-sharp claws shredded the arm of his gi.

Or maybe not.

Zane scrambled out of reach, striking out with shuriken at anything that tried to get to him and assuring a concerned Lloyd that he was alright.

More arms blew off with the next explosion, leaking dark ectoplasm onto the wooden floor. In lieu of a sword, he carefully summoned as much ice as he could, sharpening it to a deadly point. Jumping up with Airjitzu, he parried away all the attacks coming his way, then drove his makeshift sword straight into one of its eyes. Before it could hit back, he leapt out of the way and threw a few more shuriken, aiming for more eyes. If he was right about those being a weakness, then—

Having had enough of this harassment, the spirit screeched (and the sound was grossly distorted through his auditory processors), finally vanishing like it had yesterday.

— Yes, he had been right. Wasn't he always?

Now that that was finished, he turned to Lloyd and extended a hand. Lloyd took it gratefully, pulling himself up, before helping a shaky Skylor up too.

"That was incredible, Zane!"

"Yeah," Skylor chimed in quietly. "You really looked like you knew what you were doing."

"Thank you. As a matter of fact, I already fought it once yesterday," he replied.

"Really?" Lloyd asked. "We just ran into it — wait, yesterday?"

"Yes … what is it?"

"How could you have been here a whole day? We just got here. I _just_ texted Kai, that's … there's a pretty long walk between the last village and here, how did you make it so quickly?"

Zane pondered it a moment. It was quite strange …

"We have a place where we can safely sit and discuss this. But first, you two require medical attention. Now."

Almost as if on cue, Jay came shooting down the stairs, Cole not far behind. "Zane! There you are! Are you okay, why did you just — _whooa_ is that LLOYD—"

"Hey," Lloyd greeted, grinning tiredly.

"It seems we were wrong about not having to worry about any more trouble, Jay," Zane informed him. "He was being attacked when I showed up. I heard noise, so I looked and … I'm sorry for leaving with no warning, but I had to help him."

"It's … well, it's not okay," Cole sighed. "But all's well that ends well, right? And hey, now we don't have to worry about where these guys disappeared off to anymore!" he said, gently clapping Lloyd's shoulder and pulling him into a side hug. Zane noticed him making a face and trying not to buckle under the earth ninja's hand. "... Hey, wait, where's Karlof? Isn't he supposed to be with you?"

"Uh …" Lloyd hesitated for a moment. "We don't know."

There was a moment of quiet as they processed this.

Then Jay broke it, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Oh, this is too good. That's two people just gone into the night!" There was a hint of thinly-masked irritation peeking through. "Ohhh, this is just _perfect."_

Lloyd's eyebrows went up, and he looked around briefly, seeming to notice something.

Ohh. Right. They would have to explain that once they were in a safer area.

"Skylor, are you alright?" Zane asked, diverting everyone's attention. She responded with a low moan, still cradling her head.

"It tore me up pretty bad."

"I would suspect a concussion," Zane noted.

"This just keeps getting worse and worse, huh?" Cole sighed ruefully. "That was a really close call, you two — Lloyd, you're hurt!"

"Yeah, well, I'm fine," Lloyd muttered. "Don't be worrying about me."

"You're _bleeding."_

"She's hurt worse."

Cole frowned but said no more, instead opting to approach Skylor and help her up.

"Alright, we can go back to where we stayed the night and fix you guys up, then we can have a little chat about everything that's happened so far. Because from the looks on your faces, we need to have one." When no one protested, he turned and walked up the stairs carefully, Skylor in tow.

"Would you like some support as well?" Zane asked Lloyd. He was waved off.

"There's no need; I can walk." Lloyd stumbled the first few steps, but steadied himself quickly. Behind them, Jay grabbed the broken halves of a crossbow and arrows littering the floor. Zane picked his backpack up and checked it over.

And so they made their way back to the second floor.

* * *

The antiseptic that had been applied to his assorted injuries still stung as Lloyd processed everything he'd just heard.

The look on his face must've given away what he was thinking, because Jay took one look and gave him a sympathetic smile. "Yeaah, it's a lot."

Like the rest of them, he kept his voice low — Skylor had been adamant on getting explanations, concussion or not, so she sat quietly as Zane tended to her, doing her best to listen.

She did not mess around, that was for sure.

(The initial explanation he'd gotten was "You might have noticed there's a giant crazy ghost thing walking around. You might have noticed it's trying to kill us. You noticed correct." Reaaal enlightening, thanks, Jay.)

"Believe me," Cole spoke up, "we still haven't completely wrapped our heads around it, either."

"Alright, but there's still one thing that doesn't make sense. How come you've been here an entire day? We just got here," Lloyd asked, brow furrowed.

"Well, it wasn't quite an entire day …" Jay said.

"Either way. Search me," Cole said. "We set off after Kai got your text, so we thought you'd already be here."

Kai.

Kai who was missing since last night. Kai who'd apparently injured his arm.

It was exactly the sort of predicament his big brother would get himself into, wasn't it? But if he was lost somewhere, alone, while that thing was roaming the place…

That thought couldn't end pleasantly. He tried to banish it, reassure himself that Kai was fine.

It was ridiculous to think otherwise, right?

Kai was strong. He'd handled way worse than a haunted mansion.

Even if …

His mind went back to how he'd had to fight tooth-and-nail to keep the upper hand, even with his powers. How close he'd come to … actually, he didn't really want to consider it.

He suppressed a shudder.

"Uh, earth to Lloyd?"

"Huh?" He looked up.

"You alright? You look a little spaced-out."

"Oh. Uh, yeah."

"Hey." Jay's voice softened. "Kai's tough, he's probably okay. It's a huge place, maybe he's just a little lost."

"... Right." Lloyd tried to turn back to the topic at hand. "It was such a long trek, though. There's no way you made it here and spent the night in the time it took for us to walk inside, that's just impossible!"

"Both of us keep insisting that we did things according to plan, but if that was true, you should've been here before us," Cole mused.

"Either one of us isn't remembering something right, or there's another mystery that we need to solve."

"Another one. Like there wasn't enough to deal with before."

"Ya know, I'm starting to wonder if electricity isn't the only reason the watches broke," Jay muttered.

Lloyd opened his mouth, and then shut it, trying to make sense of what Jay was implying, before opening it again. "What if he has a point?"

"What are you suggesting, Lloyd? Time travel?" Cole snorted.

"No no, hear me out, that's not what I was saying," he said impatiently. "Everything looks like it went normally up until we got here, right? Because you only set off after I texted you guys."

"Yeah …?"

"But then once we stepped inside, everything went all out of whack. So it's got to be tied to something happening here."

"Just like everything else," Jay sighed. "Figures."

"And what's been messing with everything else here?"

"... Magic," Cole groaned. "You're suggesting that the very fabric of time is being messed with, and it's because of magic."

"Wait." They all turned to Skylor, who was trying to process what she was hearing. "Magic?"

"Yeah. Apparently there's a bunch of magic around here messing with … everything, basically. It's getting real old," Jay explained. Lamp light flickered on his face.

"Tell me about it."

"Hmm." A shadow crossed Skylor's face, but she said no more.

"That reminds me," Lloyd said. "It's messing with our powers too, right?"

"Yeah," Jay groaned. "Why do you remind us?"

Lloyd formed a green sphere of energy in his hands as the other two looked on questioningly. "I'm not having any problems."

"What!?" Jay exclaimed. "Oh, that is so unfair! How are you doing that?"

"I dunno," Lloyd said. "It was a little shaky at first, but it's pretty much normal otherwise."

"It's so much stronger than anything I can create," Cole grumbled.

"At least you still have powers," Skylor muttered wryly.

"... Heh. Yeah. Sorry. Well … this is a good thing! Just keep an eye out for anything changing, I guess. Oh, hey," Cole greeted Zane, who'd finished putting away the first-aid kit and was headed over now. "How are things looking?"

"Definitely a concussion," he confirmed, looking over at Skylor. "You should stay put and rest."

"I would love to do literally anything else, thanks," Skylor sighed, voice still strained with pain. "But I know I've got to, what other option do I have?"

"Is there anything else you could do, Zane?" Lloyd asked.

Zane shook his head. "Ideally, you should get your concussion properly looked at, but …"

Yeah, that probably wouldn't be happening anytime soon.

Not if they couldn't even leave.

"Well. Until then, we can look after you!" Jay said brightly.

"And keep watch," Cole added.

"That … won't be necessary," Skylor protested, still cradling her head in her hands and not doing a very convincing job of looking unbothered by it.

"You have a concussion?" he reminded her. "I've had a few of those before. They _suck,_ so you're definitely not gonna wanna be moving at all."

"Yeah, no one's going anywhere right now," Jay confirmed.

Wait, what? Last Lloyd had checked, they'd been looking for Kai. He voiced this, and the fact that Karlof had gone missing, too, but Cole shook his head.

"I know, believe me. I wanna find them just as badly as you do, but we're no use to them if we just get ourselves hurt even more in the process. For now, we've gotta stay here. We can keep looking later."

"Also, if I remember correctly, you arrived here approximately in the evening," Zane mentioned. "After traveling all day and fighting as hard as you did, you need to rest. Especially you, Skylor."

Skylor looked ready to say something, but reconsidered it.

"And if someone stays behind to look after you two, there won't be enough people to look around. Safety in numbers, dude." Jay pointed out.

"I need to rest?" Lloyd protested. "What about you guys, weren't you here a whole day?"

"Weee spent a while sleeping. … But I mean, if I get to sleep more now, I'm not complaining."

"What, on the carpet? There's only two beds, you know," Cole asked him. He got an unconcerned shrug in way of reply.

"Our sleep schedules are gonna be all over the place by the time we're done here, aren't they?" Lloyd grumbled. Stuff like normal jet lag was bad enough. Adding a messed up timestream and sleeping at random hours of the day would be nightmarish; he could imagine it already.

"Yep." A wan grin from Jay.

It looked like that was it, then. Stifling a frustrated sigh, Lloyd took the free bed, absently mumbled "thanks" when Zane wished him good sleep, and tried to block out the quiet noise of the others talking amongst themselves.

Karlof had gone missing right under their noses. And it seemed the same had happened to Kai. And Skylor … he'd left her to fight with knives , of all the things. He might've known that the spirit would land a hit on her eventually.

He'd _known_ something had struck him as suspicious about this place. Even before he'd entered it, and they'd still gone in. He should've listened to his instincts then. Told the others to call everything off.

But he hadn't, and now they were in serious danger. Even better, he'd made a bad decision and made things worse for everyone else.

This was all on him.

Lloyd spent a while more quietly berating himself before his aching limbs and exhaustion caught up to him. The hushed conversations happening around him dwindled to faint noise, then nothingness.

* * *

 _"Zane."_

Zane sighed. By this point, he knew the drill.

"Excuse me for a moment. PIXAL wishes to speak to me about something."

"Oh, okay." He could feel the eyes of the other two curiously watching him get up.

"Yes, PIXAL?" Again, not spoken, but communicated internally.

"You heard Lloyd speaking, did you not? If his theory is correct, then that means—"

"That even time is being disrupted by magic," Zane finished, the implication finally hitting him. "I have to wonder how far its effects spread, if we are only being affected inside the mansion …"

"It is difficult to tell from inside. But if it is affecting even _temporal_ energy, then it may very well be leaving nothing untouched."

"And how dangerous could that be?"

PIXAL wordlessly pulled up a line graph.

Zane's eyes widened — it was a graph tracking the levels of magic around Jay. With concern, he noted how the line fluctuated yet stayed medium-high throughout.

"And this pales in comparison to the magic concentrated in the air," PIXAL stated grimly. "How dangerous this will prove to be towards us, I do not know. But with this high a concentration of magic, with this abnormal a energy signature, anything could be possible. It would be wise to speak up."

Sobered by this fresh perspective, Zane finally approached Jay. He and Cole had been talking about something in quiet tones, but as he came closer they trailed off and looked up at him.

"Cole, if you could keep watch for a moment. Jay, may I speak to you alone?"

Cole glanced at him as if to say _'what did you do?'_ Jay shrugged, already beginning to look disquieted, and stood.

Zane stepped outside, closed the door behind both of them, and turned to Jay. Then he noticed the look on his face.

"I—Jay, is something wrong?"

"Nah." He fidgeted, and the lightness in his voice sounded forced. "So, what's up, Zane? Notice something you need fixed, or?"

"Nothing like that, thank you, I'm fine. I actually wanted to ask you if you were doing alright?"

Jay blinked, taken aback.

"Uh … yeah? There isn't a scratch on me. Totally a-ok! Why do you ask?"

Somehow, he just wasn't selling it. Zane tried to speak up, but almost at the drop of a hat, Jay's tone changed, carrying an edge that hadn't been there before.

"Say, why aren't you asking _Cole_ any of this, huh? He's super out-of-it! So what're you singling me out for? It's because I'm supposed to be the wuss, isn't it?" Jay snapped. "Well, I'm _fine,_ thanks for asking!" Regret flickered across Jay's face as soon as the words were out, but he didn't make any move to take them back, instead turning away and closing himself off.

… The words stung, even knowing that Jay was likely to get defensive.

He would tell him later, when he wasn't so wound-up. For now, though, it seemed unwise to reveal anything so unusual when Jay was already so agitated, not least because (he suspected) of his own feelings.

Zane waited a moment longer, trying to tell himself he shouldn't feel so hurt, then moved to open the door and go back inside. But before he could, Jay muttered something under his breath.

"What was that? I didn't quite catch it."

"... What are you being so nice for?" Jay said quietly. "You try to be a good friend and check up on me, and what do I do? Yell at you in the most uncalled-for way possible." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Zane."

"... We're all on-edge after what's been happening. It's understandable that you're upset," he said.

"On-edge, huh?" Jay laughed again, and just like before, there wasn't any mirth in it. "That obvious?"

"Jay —"

"Oh, no no no, you don't have to contradict me just to be nice, Zane, I know everyone's thinking it," Jay plowed on bitterly. "We run into something new and I immediately run away like the wimp I am! I can't get it together, I freak out instead of focusing on what's important; I mess up everything I'm supposed to be doing — I'm the weak link! I _know_ already."

"Jay, none of us think that," Zane told him, alarmed.

He knew, of course, that Jay was more upset then he'd let on. He'd suspected it ever since his small outburst earlier that morning. But this … did he truly think they thought so lowly of him for one mistake?

"Oh yeah?" Jay's face dropped sullenly. "Why don't you ask Kai about that?"

And there it was.

"Jay …" The blue ninja wouldn't look at him. He continued anyway. "I hope you know that neither of us blame you for Kai's disappearance. Not Cole, and certainly not I."

Jay was quiet for a moment, staring at the floor. Zane observed him mutely, trying to think of what else he could say. He had never been the best one for handling emotions …

"... I hate this place."

He hadn't expected that.

Jay's voice was soft, but something in it was so unhappy that Zane immediately felt a wave of sympathy. He said nothing, however, only nodding when Jay's eyes flicked back up towards him.

Drawing a long, shaky breath, he continued.

"I know I already said that, but it's _true._ I hate how run-down and creepy it is, I hate what it's doing to Cole. I hate that there's weird magic messing with our powers, and our electronics, and _us,_ and how scared I am all the time, and the fact that we're trapped, and that _spirit._ We thought it was gone, but it wasn't and now we have to run from it all the time! It almost got us, it almost got Skylor, it almost got _Lloyd_ — … do you know how hard it was explaining to the kid that we let Kai get lost?" After a pause, Jay amended. "That _I_ let Kai get lost—"

His voice cracked. Mortified, he wiped at his face with a sleeve, and Zane noticed that his eyes had started watering.

"Oh, I'm _such_ a wimp."

Tentatively, Zane stepped forward. Forcing down a moment's trepidation, he pulled Jay into a hug. For a moment, he drew away. Then, he threw his arms around Zane, sniffling.

They just stood like that for a few moments, Jay's tears soaking through his gi.

"Cole was … t-trying to tell me that … this wasn't on me," Jay rasped quietly at length. Another hiccup. "B-but it _was_. It's my fault."

Zane tightened his hold, mechanical heart bleeding.

"Cole was right; this is _not_ your fault. Kai chose to take your watch," he reminded Jay. "And if he does run into the spirit, he has enough sense not to fight it while injured. … Hopefully." He was rewarded with a weak laugh. "But we know he must be somewhere around here, and this many people can't possibly be in the same building without eventually running into each other. We'll find him."

A few moments passed with neither saying anything, until Jay spoke up again, voice thick.

"What if we never get out?"

Zane froze at the question, not answering immediately. Truthfully, he'd wondered and worried over the same idea. But that kind of thinking would only lead them to despair, so he'd tried to encourage himself. Now, carefully choosing his words, he attempted to do the same for Jay.

"A building this large must have more than one exit. We will find it, I'm confident."

He was decidedly _not,_ but evidently he was doing a pretty good job faking it. It seemed to be working on Jay.

When a few minutes had passed, Zane noticed him squirming a little, and let go. Once free, Jay rubbed his eyes, looking a little embarrassed but not as nervous as he had before.

"I … thanks, Zane. I kinda needed that." A rueful grin briefly flashed across Jay's face, before it dropped back into a more somber expression.

It didn't suit him to look so miserable. But he looked to be feeling at least a little better, thankfully.

"Anytime. If you're ready to go back inside …"

"... Zane." PIXAL. "Come on. You can't just drop it."

"One moment, please," Zane said, ducking away to talk to PIXAL. He got a curious look from Jay, but no questions were asked. "PIXAL, perhaps we could bring this up another time?"

"I don't understand why you are attempting to put this off now. This is the entire reason you brought Jay out alone."

"I just managed to cheer him up …" And even then, it was a very dubious definition of "cheer".

 _"Please._ It might not make him feel any better, but he needs to know."

"... Fine." Turning back to Jay, Zane said, "There is one more thing we need to talk about, actually."

"Ohh, no." The watery look he got was a mix of teasing and wariness. "What is it now?"

"Yesterday, PIXAL picked up high amounts of magic settled on this mansion."

"Yeahh, I remember," Jay said, face suggesting he was trying to piece together what this had to do with the heart-to-heart he'd been having not even a minute ago. "And?"

"Well … she also detected it surrounding _you._ "

"You're kidding."

Well, that did it. With that reaction, any possibility of there being a simple relation between the two evaporated.

"I'm afraid not."

"The … the same magic, that's screwing with everything in this mansion. And keeping us trapped. And it's on _me?"_ Jay asked nervously. "Heh. That … that sounds pretty bad."

A beat.

"That's bad, right? Ohmigosh ohmigosh how do we get it off—"

"I don't know if there is any way to 'get it off' …" Zane admitted regretfully. "But we can monitor this magic and see if it is having any negative effect," he added when he noticed the apprehensive expression on Jay's face.

"I guess," Jay said, fiddling with his hands. "I … wow, this is creepy. I don't know how I feel about it."

"Well, it doesn't seem to be having any effect now!" Zane reassured him (although he wondered, fleetingly, if it wasn't already unconsciously affecting him). "It would be counterproductive to spend too much time worrying about this. I simply wanted to make sure you knew."

"Thanks …" Jay drawled flatly.

"Perhaps I should let everyone else know about this development, as well," Zane mused. "Just so they are aware —"

"Uh, wait —" Jay burst out, loud enough to startle him. "Actually, w-would you mind keeping it between us for now?"

Zane blinked, taken aback by the request.

The blue ninja hastily clarified, as if sensing his confusion. "I mean, just until we have a better idea what's up! 'Cuz this is already kinda scary, and if the others freak out or make a huge fuss, I dunno if I can handle it …" He threw in a nervous chuckle at the end.

He made a good point.

"Very well; I understand. I do not know that it is a good idea to keep this secret indefinitely, but for the time being, this stays between us," he agreed. "But if you notice anything off, please let me know."

"Will do," Jay promised. "Thanks, Zane. Oh! Uh, you don't have to do this now, but … maybe you could check on Cole sometime? Kinda do this with him, too?" Jay snuck a glance through the door and lowered his voice even more. "I know he's trying to act all in-control, but I think he's still a little messed up from what a close call it was with Lloyd. And I don't blame him."

"Cole does seem quite anxious; I'll keep it in mind. Thank you, Jay."

Jay blinked. "What are you thanking _me_ for? _I_ should be thanking _you!_ Man, you're making me feel lousy about myself here." He caught a look at Zane's face and huffed. "Not … I didn't mean that literally. I should be good for a while, now that I got that off my chest."

"That's good. Let's go back inside," Zane urged. "I might have just finished the spirit off again, but it's better to be safe than sorry right now. We aren't truly safe as long as it's roaming around."

"True …" Jay wiped at his face with his sleeve. When he noticed Zane looking, he said, "What? I'm not about to announce to all of Ninjago that I was crying."

Zane didn't say anything, instead opening the door and following Jay back inside.


	8. Disquiet

**(A/N):Hey hey, I'm back again! Halloween in May, how fun.  
First of all, I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to lloydskywalkers, whose writing is absolutely incredible and you should read if you haven't done so already. Also may or may not be the reason I got up my butt and published this, _finally_.  
And on that note ... I really appreciate every single one of you who reviews and holds out for updates. Like I mentioned last chapter, I get caught up in revising because I want it to be as _good as possible_ , but ... you can just keep going forever that way. And this is supposed to be fun, isn't it? So even if some nagging part of me insists that this still isn't good enough, or if I feel like this short chapter wasn't worth the wait, I'm publishing it anyway - because it's not fair to keep you waiting so long, because I'm not being fair to myself or the people who help me with this fic by stagnating. Thank you so much to all of you for being so patient with me and leaving reviews; you're all the reason I keep going with this. And thank you to the people who help me with ideas and trying to plan this fic out, particularly my beta Park/artcanary.  
... I dunno, I'm just in kind of a pensive mood right now. Feel free to not mind this A/N, heh. **

**Response to guest review, next! Hello there, SerpentineKing, nice to have you along for the ride! Hope you'll stick around. The ninja in a haunted house is a fun trope idea, except there's not much fun being had. And as for when the next chapter'll be out ... now P:  
** **In all seriousness, I'm _abysmally_ bad at keeping a consistent schedule; stuff just comes out when I feel like it's ready. I try to keep the gap between chapters no longer than a month, but considering I haven't posted since March ... oops.**

 **We're back with our favorite really nervous ex-ghost and some Thoughts! I hope you like internal monologues 'cuz that's aaall this is.**

* * *

Cole zipped up his backpack, sighing quietly. He'd decided to take inventory while he had the time. Part of it was the fact that he was up and no one else was, part of it was that he'd hoped the mundanity of the task would distract him — from the small tremor in his hands and the ever-persistent knot in his stomach.

He'd tried earlier to stay calm and not let on about his feelings too much, but his crippling fear was trying to come rushing back, had been as soon as he learned that the spirit _wasn't_ dead and it had _attacked Lloyd_. He thought back to how Lloyd had been trembling with exertion when Cole patted his shoulder, and how cut up and sore he was …

It was very lucky that Zane noticed and jumped in when he did.

Luck was what it had come down to.

And Cole wasn't sure he liked that.

After all, how much longer would luck last them? It was a fickle thing; if they had another close call and weren't so fortunate…

And there was plenty of opportunity for that to come to pass. They were trapped like caged animals. There was a sinister beast slinking through the halls, ready at any moment to pounce on them — and to make things even better, any triumph over it was only temporary, meaning they were never fully safe. All this while they were tired, on-edge, and physically weakened.

How were they ever going to get out?

Lloyd had attacked the door with his _powers_ and it still wouldn't break! How could they search for Kai and Karlof with the threat of being attacked out of nowhere constantly breathing down their necks—?

Oh _no_.

That was another thing, he realized, stomach twisting itself into uncomfortable knots.

Kai!

They'd only managed to keep their cool because they reasoned that with the spirit defeated, he couldn't have fallen into its clutches.

But that wasn't true, was it? If that thing was still out there, and Kai and Karlof were both still unaccounted for … _they were still in danger_.

Anything could happen. Heck, what was to say that nothing had already happened? Alone, they were all so vulnerable. If Kai was really okay, he'd have found his way back to the room by now; it wasn't like he didn't know where it was.

Yet here they were, an hour or so after waking up to an empty bed where Kai should have been, and still nothing. Not to mention that Karlof had essentially disappeared into the clouds.

What if they weren't okay, then? What if one or both of them had gotten hurt, or _worse —_

Cole took a few breaths, as deep as he could make them.

In.

Hold for seven seconds.

Then out.

He couldn't think like that.

He'd already panicked once yesterday, and he couldn't afford to lose his head again. He'd be utterly useless if he did.

What was wrong with him, anyway? He had no reason to be this wound-up and flighty. None.

Cole was getting frustrated with himself by now. As soon as they'd walked in, he'd been buffeted by a terrible sense of wrongness, but it shouldn't have had this much of an effect on him. He felt a little bit like he had back when he'd first turned into a ghost — more scared than he'd ever been, and incredibly helpless to do anything about it. Come to think of it, he'd never been quite so anxious since.

And here he'd thought he'd worked through his ghost problems by now. After all, he hardly had a problem with sharing the same space as Sensei Yang.

Even if the cantankerous old ghost made for … interesting company.

But then, this was no ordinary ghost they were up against, here.

Was it super creepy and probably capable of killing them? Yes, but so were … lots of other things they'd fought. And those hadn't instantly sent him panicking — that was Jay's job.

But there was something so _wrong_ about the noises it made and the way it moved and its very presence that chilled him down to the bone. The grotesque spirit seemed worse than a hundred ghosts, combined. And they didn't even have Nya to test if drowning it would work this time.

… Nya. For a few seconds, he wished the last ninja was here with them; then he thought it over and grimaced. All things considered, it was probably for the best that she wasn't, although her presence would've been greatly appreciated.

Was she worried that they hadn't given her any word in … almost an entire day, now?

Cole felt a brief stab of guilt at the idea, but then made himself dismiss it. It was likely, but what could they do? Magical interference meant that they couldn't contact _anyone_. Not Nya, not Sensei or Misako, not any of the other elemental masters, nobody.

Speaking of which, _magic_.

Cole huffed and pulled on a hoodie he'd packed (it only ever seemed to get colder in this stupid mansion, which wasn't doing him any favors).

A seemingly impenetrable door; no way to open it or alternate exits that they knew of; magic tamping coldly down on their powers, their bodies, their strength, their tech, and seemingly _time itself;_ and a spirit that didn't stay down and could very possibly take them out if they weren't careful.

What a situation they'd gotten themselves into!

At any rate, they couldn't look for Kai or Karlof right now. There weren't enough of them who could — Lloyd and Skylor were both resting, and Zane had powered down again. What with their night being cut short, he hadn't recharged nearly as much as he should've, so he was catching up on lost ZZZs now. Jay was pretty much fine, but he'd followed Zane's lead and decided to sleep, too.

And going alone? Out of the question.

He'd have joined them, but for now, he was way too nervous, and someone had to stay alert. Although with the way things were going, Cole was gonna have to hope _he_ didn't disappear into thin air, geez.

He lazily surveyed the room from where he was sitting, and Zane caught his eye fast. His titanium shell glinted in the light of the small fire they'd tried to coax life back into.

 _Ohhh_ , tincan.

He'd kept his head screwed on incredibly tight thus far, trying to keep them sane even when he couldn't be feeling good about any of this, either. With more than a little guilt, he realized that up 'til now, Zane had basically acted as their glue. And it wasn't even his job!

And what had Cole done?

Worked his nerves up into a froth and spent the entire rest of the day trying to recover from it. Let the utter _wrongness_ of the place paralyze him instead of doing anything to get them out of it faster.

Yikes.

He was … going to have to work on that. He had to be _better._

It wasn't right to make Zane keep everything together. Having Lloyd with them now was definitely going to help matters, but that didn't mean he couldn't take some of the responsibility on his shoulders. Stupid anxiety; he'd show it.

Huh. The breathing seemed to be working, at least — he legitimately felt a little better. Just keep trying to calm himself down and he'd be golden. Hopefully.

Good start, at any rate.

Pressing his back to the wall and properly settling in, he looked now to Jay. The blue ninja was curled up near Zane, having unceremoniously plopped onto the floor and passed out without even a blanket (which was some feat, when you took into account how _cold_ it was).

Jay was … the most erratic out of all of them so far. Yeah, he'd run off, but then he'd been good about helping Zane fight the spirit (when he hadn't been any use himself), and he'd seemed like his normal self, joking around and helping lighten the mood; but then he'd let Kai talk him into giving up his shift … Trying to guess what to expect from him at any time was like reaching into a grab bag and not knowing whether you'd get candy or a handful of rocks.

 _Not_ that there was anything wrong with rocks, of course.

It was worrisome. Jay seemed to be walking around in a subdued daze, voice sounding strained whenever he talked. He was _trying_ to act silly as usual and shoot off witticisms like everything was fine (Or as fine as it got in a place like this).

But at the drop of a hat, he got snippish, and irritable. Cole'd seen that in his outburst that morning — and it'd only gotten worse.

And he knew he couldn't be the only one who'd noticed, either. From the look on both their faces when they left the room, Zane and Jay hadn't just been having a nice chat earlier. And Jay had walked back in with his eyes suspiciously puffy.

He'd asked no questions. Being nosy would just make him defensive, so he minded his own business.

Plus, it would have just been plain rude. Especially considering that Jay had been surprisingly nice about Cole's own troubles so far, sticking close whenever they were together, subtly checking up on him every now and then, and never once making a joke about him being afraid. He appreciated it.

He'd tried to reciprocate earlier; worried that Jay had more on his mind then he was letting on. Afraid he'd made Jay think it was his fault Kai was missing, he'd grabbed Jay while they were alone and made it clear that he didn't feel that way. The master of lightning had been discouragingly closed-off.

If Zane had somehow managed to get through to him in a way that Cole hadn't, then well. He was gonna be grateful for it, because he totally didn't feel a little wounded by that.

Then Lloyd, snoozing away on a bed. He was wiped from that fight on top of hours of walking; he really needed the rest. Cole had been about ready to have a heart attack when he saw what a close call Lloyd had been in. Thank goodness he was okay, though. And it was nice to finally have him accounted for.

Poor kid hadn't taken Kai's disappearance well, though. He was trying to be tough about it, but it was easy to tell he was worried. Already, the gravity of the situation was beginning to weigh his shoulders down; if Cole was feeling bad, he could only imagine how Lloyd felt about it.

And he was clearly guilty over letting Karlof get lost and not being able to protect Skylor from getting such a serious injury, too. Cole sighed; he was familiar with how it felt to blame yourself for what happened to others, but it really hadn't been Lloyd's fault.

… Though he had a feeling he hadn't quite gotten through to Lloyd on that, if the twitching scowl on his face before he'd gone to sleep was any indication.

And for that matter, Skylor.

Ouch.

Having had a few concussions in his life, Cole felt sympathetic to her current plight. Chances were, she wouldn't be moving much for a while, and she'd be hard-pressed to defend herself if there were ever a situation where she'd need to. So they'd probably need someone to keep a consistent look-out …

Gears began to turn in his head, and he latched onto that. Now that he thought about it, they hadn't ever decided what to do once they'd had their rest. Think about that instead of concentrating too much on the persistent little voices whispering of their doom in his ears, and he wouldn't have as much room to psych himself out. That was good.

And of course, the first course of action would be to keep looking for Kai and Karlof.

Maybe they'd found each other? But if that were the case, there was no reason that Kai wouldn't have led him to the room they were currently huddled up in … he sighed softly, the sound barely disturbing the air in front of him.

 _Wherever you are, you'd better be okay_. Cole traced the small flames still clinging onto fiery life with his eyes, sending out a mental plea.

 _Find us soon, alright? … It's not safe here._

 _We're worried._


	9. Some Answers

**(A/N): Hey guys! SUMMER. Has been so good to be out of school. The last two weeks were a hellish fever pitch of getting stuff done. :')**  
 **I was also pretty thrilled for this month being pride month! I went to a nearby pride festival with a friend and I loved it. Enough about my summer, though; how's everyone else's summers been? And since S9 premiered ... thoughts? (No spoilers in the reviews, though, some might not be watching it yet.)**  
 **This is one of the fluffier chapters so far, if anyone's glad to hear it. Also crazy headcanon GALORE which is really just me indulging the heck out of my friends, as well as something people might have been waiting to see. :3 It's also rather short, so thoughts on whether they should be longer than this or not?**  
 **Might be a good time to say I don't own Ninjago or anything associated, just the fic. Never too safe.**

 **Without further ado, then!**

* * *

A faint but sudden burst of sound abruptly snapped Cole out of his thoughts.

He just managed not to jump clear to the ceiling. Heart rate shooting up, he stiffened to a more upright position, eyes darting around warily. For a few dizzying seconds, raw _fear_ coursed through his limbs.

Then he caught wind of what was happening and had just enough presence of mind to groan at himself.

False alarm. They were _not_ in danger, he told himself firmly, pulling back the hand that had subconsciously edged towards his scythe.

It was just Jay.

Blearily sitting up and rubbing one eye, the blue ninja grumbled that it was too cold to stay asleep.

"It's what you get for sleeping without a blanket," Cole replied, praying Jay wouldn't notice how _weak_ he sounded right then.

"... Hey, you alright?"

 _Dang it._

"Yeah, just fine," he murmured shortly. "Just … you startled me."

"Oh. … Sorry."

Neither of them said anything for a couple seconds, until Cole idly patted the carpet next to him.

"Join me, why don't you?"

"Why would I do that?" Jay joked half-heartedly. "This is a perfectly comfortable patch of floor. You join _me."_

"I mean, the fire's so much closer to me," Cole shrugged. "But it's your loss."

A beat. Jay scooted over to him wordlessly, arms still wrapped around his knees. Cole frowned, considering for a moment, then reached for his pack and rummaged through it. Jay lifted his head up from his knees and watched with a faint curiosity.

"Here." Cole held out a grey scrap of cloth — another hoodie. "Since you're just absolutely _freezing_ and all. I wouldn't be a very good friend if I let you sit here and turn into an icicle," he quipped.

Jay blinked at him, hesitantly regarding it for a moment.

"That thing is going to be way too big on me."

"Extra warmth, then," Cole snorted. "I'm trying to be nice here, shut up and take it."

"Okay, okay."

* * *

"Hey, so …you're the tech expert. How well do these things still work, exactly?"

Cole picked up very quickly that Jay was still … off, somehow. Trying to make conversation was difficult when it just tapered off into abnormal silence. Jay could dodge and act like there was nothing wrong all he wanted, but the ninja sitting next to him felt worlds different from the talkative, silly master of lightning he was used to. And even if he was being uncharacteristically secretive about what was eating at him, far be it from Cole to just leave someone in the dumps.

If Jay refused to talk about it, he could cheer him up some other way. At the very least, distract him from it. He had to try.

"Why … do you ask?" Jay raised an eyebrow at him.

"Just answer the question."

"Okay, okay. Obviously, wifi and signal are completely shot, but everything else …" He sighed. "Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I have no way of figuring out how well they still work. Kinda like dropping your phone and messing it up, except you don't know how."

"Great." Cole frowned as every single app he tried to open crashed, after a loading time that made sloths look speedy. Finally, though, the photo gallery decided to take pity on him and load.

He could work with that.

He tapped, then turned the screen to show Jay.

"Georgie?" Jay raised an eyebrow.

"Yep. I wonder whether Nya's remembering to feed her …"

"You doubt _Nya?_ I'm disappointed." Jay blinked at him a moment longer before sighing dramatically.

"You like your pet goblin _way_ too much."

"Hey, take that back. She is _not_ a goblin!"

Jay raised an eyebrow.

"... Okay, fine. But she's a _cute_ goblin. Besides, don't act like you don't like her."

"I do, but not the way _you_ do. And to think, boulderbrain!" Jay shook his head. "You were so strict about us not having any pets before … you huge dork."

"You think it'd have been logical to have _animals_ on an _airborne pirate ship?"_

"... Touché."

Sure, he'd been strict on the "no-pets" policy when they were on the Bounty. But now that they lived in Yang's temple … they'd all kind of gone to town with pets. Mostly because they could.

Kai had a lizard; Nya and Zane shared ownership of a fishtank, alongside the falcon. Lloyd, surprisingly, didn't jump at the opportunity to get a pet of his own (citing costs, even when they and Misako all offered to help pay for anything he wanted to get), but claimed some kinda joint ownership over every animal in the temple. Considering this meant pet care got delegated to Lloyd whenever anyone else couldn't do it, it suited the others just fine.

Cole, himself, had (much to the dismay of Jay and his new rat) taken in a hairless stray cat named Georgie. Why not? it wasn't like his skin or allergies particularly appreciated fur, anyway. And he'd come to adore the wrinkly kitty — enough that there was an entire folder entirely dedicated to photos of the ridiculous antics she got into.

He'd like to see _anyone_ stay in a bad mood for long with those.

A while later, they were still scrolling through Cole's photo gallery, snickering and cooing over the pictures.

"That's fr _om the Pop Rocks-Tabasco sauce incident—!"_

"Hooooly fizzims, I didn't know Kai could _breath fire_ until then."

"Right in the cat's _face."_

"Oh man, she avoided him for a week straight after. Just ran out of the room yowling when he walked in."

"Serves him right; Kai was really letting being Georgie's favorite get to his head."

"Oh man, and look at this one. Remember when you shocked her and she almost clawed your nose off?"

"It was an _accident_ , come on …"

"Hey, if it's any consolation." Cole patted Jay's shoulder, snickering. "I thought the cat scratches complemented your face quite nicely. Should've kept them." He ducked away to avoid Jay taking a swipe at him.

As they both started to relax, the joking around quietened again, but this time, it didn't seem so tense and unhappy. When he reached the end of the pictures, Cole looked over and chuckled; Jay had fallen back asleep. What had he even taken watch for last night if he was so tired?

Cautiously, he tried to wiggle his way out from under him. No dice.

And now that Jay was back asleep, he didn't have much else to do to relieve his boredom. Which, considering that he had an awful lot to get his mind off of, was unfortunate.

And now he was sleepy, too. Of course _now_ he was starting to feel the insufficient sleep kick in.

Reminding himself that he was the only one up, he tried to stay awake, but eventually he lost that fight.

* * *

Zane's eyes flickered open, flashing blue. His internal systems booted up again.

He'd set his power so that the instant he'd fully recharged, he'd be up again. Had anyone insisted, he would've gone back into his sleep mode to rest a little more and accumulate power reserves. But strangely enough, it was quiet.

Wait — not quite.

Looking around, he caught Cole and Jay on the floor, both wearing grey hoodies that neither had on before. Cole's head was hanging a little; Jay's head rested on his shoulder, and he appeared to be … trying to cuddle him.

Well. Jay had always had a habit of hugging things in his sleep …

Both were asleep sitting upright against the wall, and Zane couldn't help a smile. When they were all still reeling a little from what they'd been thrown into, it was a sweet moment.

One thing caught his attention, however. Coming closer, he carefully pulled Cole's phone out of his lap and set it back with the other phones, before pulling out a small blanket and spreading it out over the both of them. It was chilly, after all. Hopefully it was appreciated.

He glanced at the door: locked. So their safety wasn't completely compromised. All the same, it was best to play it safe. Surely, he could keep watch while everyone else caught up on their sleep a little longer. Quickly, he checked with PIXAL — he did have enough power to make it through the day.

And now that he thought about it, there were a few things he could discuss with her …

That was that, then. He quickly checked on the kerosene lamp, then settled in.

* * *

The night was the color of tar, and just as thick.

With a _whoosh_ , a sword cut through the thick air, hitting its mark and digging itself into a large eye.

The ever-present growling grew lower and sharper, rasping harshly against his ears.

"Come on! We gotta move, now!" Kai lept back, glancing to the person backing away behind him. "Believe me, I know it's a shock, but you can mourn your powers later!"

"But where to go from here? Why can't we go in room?"

"Not safe! Why do you think I locked the door when I came out? They're all asleep in there; if it followed me inside …" Hastily, Kai ducked under an attack.

He was getting better at this. Remembering Jay's advice of attacking its head really helped; there were tons of sensitive eyes to stab at, perfect for a quick, devastating hit. And much quicker than trying to upset its balance by attacking its legs, which he'd tried before. But well … he remembered his arm, sore and screaming for rest now, and winced.

He was only even doing this much because he'd heard noise and decided, on an impulse, to investigate on his own. And who else did he find but Karlof, backing away from a quite vengeful-looking spirit!

From that point, it wasn't even a question as to what to do — distract it and _make tracks_.

"Fine! But you still didn't answer first question."

"Hold _on_ , Karlof, I'm a little busy trying to save your butt!" Kai quickly shot his arm up, katana glinting silver in the pale moonlight as he used it to hack away at a misty, claw-tipped arm reaching him. When he miscalculated how far to move and ended up painfully slammed away, Karlof offered him a hand up and a dry look. Then, before Kai could even shout a protest, he'd tightened his gauntlets hard and gone in for a punch.

The attack made the spirit scream briefly — he winced; that couldn't be good for Karlof's ears up-close — and sent it hurtling back. The spirit didn't immediately recover, instead drawing back and screeching.

Now was their chance.

Kai allowed a whistle — while Karlof couldn't have lasted on his own in a fight against the spirit with no guaranteed safety to run back to, he definitely would've put up a hard fight. After all, powers or not, he was a _devastating_ hitter. Kai still remembered the bruises he'd gotten before the Tournament.

"We go now?" Karlof yelled over the inhuman shrieks.

"Now! Uh … this way!" Kai took off, panting and achy. Karlof pulled ahead, but the pitch black of night combined with the assortment of objects and debris strewn across the floor didn't make for very good running, and he tripped.

"Come on, get back up!" Kai said urgently, looking over his shoulder. The spirit was going to catch up any moment now … oh, he _knew_ it couldn't have been gone for good. "Unless you wanna become a tin salad, I suggest we get a move on."

"Actually, is medium-carbon-steel alloy —"

"I don't care!" he snapped, hurriedly grabbing Karlof's hand and heaving him up. "Just go!" He practically shoved Karlof down the stairs. Then he tore down them himself.


	10. Ugly Prospect

**(A/N): Hi guys! I wanted to post something sooner than a month, but alas, even in summer I am fickle. :') Ah well.  
Hope everyone's doing well! Thanks again to all of you who read and to my beta, Park, so much! I'm so glad I have a new chapter up. We've made it to ten! W oohoo!  
... I know, it's a pathetic number. But you know what else is pathetic, my work ethic, so I shall congratulate myself because a milestone is a milestone!  
Also hey, check out the new cover art! Click on it. I beg you. It's so _cool._  
That was done by StoneByrd on dA! Please check out their art it's AWESOME, and so is the artist behind it all! **

* * *

Lloyd groggily rubbed the last bits of sleep from his eyes as he came to, and faintly registered someone saying, "Oh hey, he's up!"

For a brief moment he was confused — where was this place, because it certainly wasn't the Bounty or the Temple — and then it hit him again.

Ah. Right.

"Hey," he mumbled back, blinking back sleep and pushing himself into a sitting position before clambering off the bed.

Cole shot him a smile from where he stood nearby. "How're you feeling? Is the rest helping any?"

"Yeah, a little." Gingerly, Lloyd stretched his arms and back. They were still pretty sore, as were the several tiny injuries he'd sustained, but he definitely felt better than before. He could handle this. "What now?"

"Man, eyes right on the goal." Cole chuckled. "Classic Lloyd. Glad to see you're not too thrown by everything that's happening right now."

"Yeah, I'm fine. I've had plenty of time to rest; let's focus on making up for lost time."

"Whoa, easy, buster." Cole put a hand on his shoulder and fixed him with a serious look. "I'm with you on that one, trust me. I want to find them as much as you do. Imagining them walking around out there while that spirit's still roaming around …" He grimaced. "Not great. But don't go rushing out into anything without taking care of yourself first, okay, green bean? Nothing gets solved that way."

Lloyd sighed. "Alright, alright. But I swear I'm good. Seriously. So what now?"

"Glad you asked," Cole said grimly. "Because we were just about to discuss it."

"Yep!" Jay piped up, announcing his presence. "Heya. You nice and rested now?" Lloyd nodded, smiling thinly back at him.

"Great! Then come, gather 'round ye olde campfire as we share tales."

Lloyd blinked at the fireplace.

"... That's not a campfire."

"Right," Cole said. "Not to mention —" he swept his hand in an arc around the fireplace sardonically, "— we can't really gather _round_ it."

"Oh, shut up and lemme have my fun for once, would you?"

"Hmm." Cole pretended to consider it, before he and Lloyd chimed in unison. "Nahhhh."

"Hmph. Fine," Jay huffed over Lloyd and Cole's laughter, turning and marching towards the fire. "Be that way."

"Okayy," Cole chuckled. "Why don't we go see what's up with Zane?"

Zane, as it turned out, was running yet another check on Skylor, sitting up on the other bed. Even out-of-it as she was, she seemed to be less oblivious than Zane to the fact that the two of them were monopolizing the room's increasingly-amused attention.

"How is your eyesight?"

"Eh, a little blurry, but not terrible …"

It took her a few seconds to answer. From the expression on his face, Zane had made a note of this.

"Any lingering nausea?"

"It's there. Not as bad as before, though."

"Dizziness?"

"Some. I dunno." She squirmed a little under Zane's scrutiny. "It'd probably be worse if I was standing."

"Headache?"

"Still bad. But thank you for the Tylenol."

"Of course. Are my voice or the light from the fireplace particularly overwhelming for you?"

"A little, but again, not terrible. I can deal, it's fine."

"It's not a question of 'dealing'," Zane countered, frowning. "I am trying to assess the severity of your concussion, based on how well you have recuperated since the time of impact with rest."

"Alright, alright," Skylor said, with an embarrassed chuckle.

"Anyway. Do you recall what we discussed earlier about this mansion?"

Skylor hesitated, biting her lip. "... Wish I could say with certainty that I could," she finally responded ruefully.

"It's understandable, under your current condition. The rest of us can always review our present circumstances later on."

A sigh. "That would be nice, thanks."

"How tired do you feel?"

Skylor didn't even bother answering with anything but a long-suffering sigh.

"Do I ever feel _,_ " Jay butt in, evidently unable to resist any longer. Both she and Zane looked over with a start. "Man, I'm pretty sure that ain't just the concussion."

"H-hello, Jay."

"Wow," Cole whistled behind him, audibly amused. Lloyd let loose quiet snickers. "There's always a need for a ninja, but on the off chance there wasn't, you would make a _killer_ doctor."

"We can't see a medical professional," Zane replied. "Therefore, it is important to be thorough."

"What, aren't _you_ the medical professional?" Jay asked.

"No? I merely have extensive knowledge on basic medical care and first-aid in my databases —"

"Eh, close enough."

* * *

"So."

They were all "gathered 'round the campfire", as Jay had joked earlier. Skylor was seated a little ways further from it with her head nested on one of her palms, concussion-sensitized eyes not taking well to the stark light the hungry flames spit out. The heat settled softly on their chill-nipped skin, reminding them all too clearly of a certain master of fire they had yet to find.

"What do we do from here?"

"We … find Kai and Karlof?" Jay suggested flippantly. "Duh?"

"No, _really,_ Sherlock."

"Of course that's priority number one," Lloyd stepped in quickly, keeping his voice low. "Question is _how_. We already searched the first floor … and Karlof went missing _while_ we were doing that."

"Uh, question," Jay started, raising his hand like a school student and not bothering to wait for acknowledgement before plowing on, "how does a guy that size just _go missing?_ That's like losing your car in your garage."

"That's what I said," Skylor muttered under her breath.

"In all fairness, the mansion is slightly bigger than a garage …"

"Heh. Not the point, Zane."

"Look, who _knows_ how? I don't get it, either." Lloyd pinched the bridge of his nose. "One way or another, he isn't here, and neither is Kai, and we _need to find them."_

"Exactly. Because the sooner we find them, the sooner we can look for a way _out_ of here," Cole reminded. "You think they could've bumped into each other?"

"That would depend on when they disappeared, would it not? We know Kai went missing sometime in the night." Zane said. "But if it's true that temporal energy is also being disrupted here, then it might be difficult to gauge how long ago Karlof went missing, or how close he is to when you last saw him."

"Well, it looked like it was _getting_ dark," Lloyd said, "but if it's true that time's all messed up, then I'm not sure."

"Ya know, I buy it," Jay grumbled. "You were right earlier; this does feels like jet lag."

Oh, so it wasn't just him that was feeling all over the place. He'd felt much better waking up, but now he felt a bit scrambled. Nothing he couldn't handle, but still …

"So that's not a concrete possibility, then."

"I see no need for us to rule it out," Zane said. "We don't know anything for certain, after all."

"Okay, but maybe if we tried to narrow down where they'd have gone?" Jay tried. "I mean, I dunno about Karlof or anything. But Kai knows about the spirit; he'd want to avoid it, right?"

"Well, gee, maybe if he wanted to avoid it … he shoulda, I dunno, stuck with us!" Cole huffed.

"On that topic, we still don't know why he left …" Zane thought. "Cole, are you alright?"

"Huh, me? Yeah, peachy," Cole said, but he did sound more nervous than he had a second ago. "Just … we are assuming he _left,_ instead of being snatched away by that thing while we were all asleep, right?"

Lloyd's stomach dropped at the thought. He remembered again the spirit, huge and absolutely unnatural. Then he thought of it having the _joy_ of picking Kai off while it was dark and no one was awake to help.

He tried not to shudder.

"I don't think we need to worry about that, Cole. The door was locked, and there was no sign of a fight or even its presence when we woke. Also, had it struck, I'm certain that you and Jay, at least, would have taken notice."

"Yeah, exactly!" Jay didn't sound very confident. "The key to the door was missing, too; that's gotta mean he left on his own!"

Cole must have caught something in the tremor of the words that Lloyd didn't; after hesitantly letting his hand hover for a moment, he brought it down on Jay's shoulder and squeezed. Jay turned, trying to read his face with something like surprise, but by then the black ninja had already directed his attention back towards the conversation with a question of his own.

"Why would he, though? Karlof went missing, that's one thing. Why would Kai _purposefully_ put himself in more danger?"

"Well. When you word it that way …" Lloyd chimed back in, unable to resist an opportunity to take a dig at his brother even through his concern.

"Hush, you scamp."

Lloyd grinned, even though the movement made the scratches on his face sting.

"... Even if you have a point."

He grinned wider.

"Anyway!" Jay quickly tried to backtrack the subject. "If we try to look around based on where Kai might be, then where would we be looking?"

"Considering how little we know about why Kai disappeared, that is a difficult question," Zane said. "But if we assume his motive is to hide from the spirit, I can think of two spots where he would be likely to be, based on yesterday's events, that strange alcove formed by tilting the painting in that art gallery, and the bedroom we deemed unusable." Lloyd opened his mouth, confused, then shut it and made a note to ask what Zane was even _talking_ about later.

"But we already checked both of those out …"

"Then maybe he's trying to put as much distance between him and it as possible," Lloyd said. "If it showed up around here, there wouldn't be any point in sticking around. So he could be somewhere we haven't looked yet, or overlooked. … And that's not even considering Karlof … "

"So he could be in one of the places we've already checked, or he could be literally anywhere else. And we've got the elemental version of a Transformer mech probably roaming around missing too, with absolutely no leads to where he could've ended up. Great!" Cole threw his hands up. "We'll never find 'em."

"Uh, not with _that_ attitude, we won't," Jay said. "Come on, throwing up your hands and calling yourself done now is like getting past the first cutscene of a video game and tossing the controller away."

"Only _you_ could make a video game reference now, Jay. Only you."

"What's that supposed to mean? I'm not the only one who plays 'em."

"Yeah, but you're the only one who's enough of a dork to do it."

"Oh, _I'm_ the dork? Alright, that's it, I am _done_ tolerating this hypocrisy —"

"Wha —"

And with that, Jay launched into what was probably the most dramatic telling of all the reasons Cole did not have the right to call him a dork, ever. Initially they'd tried to rein the conversation back from Jay and an increasingly flustered Cole, they really had. But by the time Jay had rattled down the list to Cole trying to bake in his sleep and nearly blowing up the oven and Cole riposted by bringing up that Jay hugged things in his sleep and he'd know because Jay had just been hugging _him,_ thank you very much, Lloyd was near tears of laughter, and Zane's chuckle sounded equal parts amused and perplexed, and it was a generally useless endeavor.

Right when it seemed they'd finally calmed down, they realized Skylor had fallen asleep during the discussion and they lost it all over again. Unfortunately, trying to keep quiet so as not to wake her just sent them into an absolute tizzy, and for a good while trying to steer back on track was nothing short of impossible.

* * *

Eventually, they managed to sober up enough to come up with a plan, but as soon as the cold air, charged with their anxieties and tension, settled back down on their shoulders like weights, they sorely missed the levity of the last few minutes. Considering that Kai had been in the mansion for a day or so already, it seemed unlikely that he would have gotten too lost to find his way back to them.

Meaning there was an ugly prospect that they could no longer ignore now hanging on their shoulders — that Kai could have been too incapacitated to return.

And this was ignoring the fact that they had little to no idea on how Karlof would be faring or how to look for him. For all they knew, he could be hurt, too.

In the end, they ended up deciding to look in the places where Kai had already been after all, and then branch out from there. Some of the others had already searched most of the second floor, but Cole conceded that there was a chance they'd missed him and it was worth looking again. Complicating matters was the fact that time itself had become an obstacle obstructing their way, if the time it took for the other ninja to find Lloyd and Skylor despite them arriving was any indication, and the longer they waited, the more their chances of success were slim.

They couldn't all go, of course. Skylor was concussed, and if she was unfortunate enough to bump into it again calling the result "disastrous" would be putting it mildly. On top of that, Kai had presumably taken the key to the room they were in, so someone had to stay behind to keep watch and let them in.

Cole had looked so uncomfortable at the thought of going back out that Zane asked him if he was certain he wanted to go, but he'd just steeled his expression and nodded. He came off jittery, even when he acted otherwise calm, and Lloyd wondered if he wasn't letting on about something. Cole only acted that way if something got to him _bad,_ like when he'd been a ghost …

They tried to ask Lloyd if he wouldn't rather stay back and get some extra rest, since he'd fought so hard against the spirit, but just the thought of sitting around and doing nothing a second longer made something in him flare up with distress. After all, Karlof had gone missing on his watch, and the other person who'd vanished was _Kai_.

When he said he was coming, Jay nervously pointed out that he was pretty scratched up and was he _sure_ he was safe to be walking around so soon —

Lloyd interrupted him, perhaps a tad too sharply, and insisted that he was coming, and that was final.

No one argued. They knew better than to, when his mind was that made up about anything.

Jay tentatively volunteered to stay behind with the still-asleep Skylor, so that made their search team. As they threw first aid kits and anything else they'd need into their bags, Jay wished them luck and told them to let him know if they found anything. And with that, Lloyd warily unlocked the door and turned the knob.


	11. Unknown

**(A/N): school is killing me dead I'm so sorry. Someday I'll actually learn to write longer chapters, but today is not that day. Happy spooky month/day if I don't post on Halloween! Go rot your teeth out with the candy.  
Again, thanks so much to everyone who reviews and puts up with the wait times! I love you. And also my beta Park, the literal best. **

* * *

Two pairs of footsteps. One light and brisk, the other heavy and powerful.

Both pounded hard and fast against aged wooden floor, echoed in the still darkness. From time to time, they stumbled or briefly petered out, whether because of exhaustion or unseen obstacles. But they always started up again with a gritty tenacity.

Now, they stopped again, quite abruptly, and a dull, heavy ' _clang'_ rang through the air.

" _Seriously?"_ A sigh. A faint, flickering flame lit the faces of both the person fueling it and the person sheepishly pulling himself off the ground next to a knocked-over vase.

"Well, maybe if you don't want Karlof _trip so much,_ you should make better flame."

"Heyyy, I'm trying here." Kai pushed the little fistful of fire in his hand a bit further, anyway; he'd left his flashlight with all of his other stuff. "Karlof, I swear, you're gonna be the death of us both if you keep this up — whoa, _what_ the —"

The wall nearby had fallen away with a rumble, leaving a clean hole. Kai tentatively held his fist to the darkness, revealing a flight of roughly-hewn stairs. Karlof squinted at them behind him, breath still quick from running, like his own.

"Do we go?"

Great question. For now, it looked like they'd lost the spirit chasing them down, but the slight chill going down his spine only strengthened Kai's uneasy feeling that they weren't truly safe in the open. And at the _thought_ of seeing it again, the pain throbbing through his arm felt even worse. He winced, and made his decision.

"I dunno what you did, but gift horse is a gift horse. Let's not look it in the mouth."

And with that, he ducked inside.

Karlof hesitated a moment — "What horses have to do with this? Will never understand Ninjagians …" — before following.

"Hmm …"

On a hunch, Kai fumbled with the wall near the opening, finally hitting upon a switch that pulled the wall shut when flicked.

That only confirmed the inkling he'd gotten, once the surprise had worn off a little. Whatever this was, its mechanics worked a _lot_ like the little room Cole had found earlier. Was that a coincidence? It couldn't be.

Ack. Cole. He'd left him — and everyone else — alone on a whim.

Not his smartest move.

Sure, if he hadn't Karlof would probably be much worse off, but …

Kai was just going to have to hope they remembered the way back.

But for now, there were stairs, and he wasn't about to just gonna walk away from them without investigating. Heavens knew in this place the more they knew, the better.

So the only thing to do was keep moving.

Karlof fell into step behind him, both their breaths evening out slowly. With Kai holding his hand out in front to light the way, they picked their way down the stairs, each step clapping softly in the dark.

* * *

 _You must not have heard. Take heed._

* * *

Consciousness filtered in slowly, along with a persistent throb in her head that wrested her attention. Wincing, Skylor cracked her eyes open, glad when they tolerated the dimmed lighting. Embarrassingly, she'd fallen asleep sitting up, but she didn't try to stand; more hassle than it was worth right now. Trying to remember everything that had happened before she'd gone to sleep was uncomfortably slow work, like trying to think through a fog, but once it came back, she had to suppress a displeased groan.

Presently, she noticed a noise that she hadn't pinpointed before, almost quietly buzzing in her skull. It was a voice, a somewhat familiar one. Hushed and tense. Who was that, again …?

It took a moment to remember the answer: Jay.

Carefully, she looked over, trying to find where he was. The blue ninja was sitting against a wall, bag next to him, peering intently at a book of some kind and muttering the words under his breath. Despite her better judgement, she found herself curious as to what he was saying. Something was bothering her, she just wasn't sure what. She'd always been a good spy, perceptive and sharp; maybe if she strained her ears …

No luck. He was too quiet, and concentrating on his voice was exacerbating it from a mild, buzzing annoyance to a worse, droning pain.

"Hey," she called. Then she winced again — too loud, especially coming from her own throat. Thankfully, she wouldn't have to repeat herself. Jay almost snapped to attention, head whipping up from his book.

"O-oh. Hey, you're up." he whispered. "How's the concussion?"

"Take a guess," she replied, lowering her voice this time. "Would you mind keeping it down? I know it's a bit rude of me to ask, but …"

"But the noise is too much?" Jay zipped up his bag quickly and set it back down. "Don't worry about it, I can do that."

"Can you?" she said sarcastically. It felt a little weird to hear him so quiet when she remembered him as one of the louder ninja. Jay dramatically placed a hand on his chest.

"You've got a concussion and you're still going to be mean to me?"

Skylor huffed, unable to think of a good reply. She looked around the room instead, trying to better recall what was so wrong about it, what was bothering her.

Then she realized.

"Where is everyone else?"

"Ohh, them." Jay sat down on the other bed. "They're out looking for Kai and Karlof."

"Beeeecause they're missing."

"Yep. I'm here because they figured someone needed to keep a watch with you here."

"Oh."

Skylor felt a little bad about being the dead weight thanks to her concussion, if she was being honest. Already she'd been the objectively weakest of all of them, having lost her powers far before ever entering the mansion, but this was just a slap to the face. Or the back of the head. Same difference.

But, as she had no trouble remembering, there was some horrid abomination walking around out there that apparently couldn't be permanently killed but was very capable of inflicting that much upon them. (After all, it was its fault that she even _had_ a concussion right now.) So it was probably for the best that she stayed put and had a little protection, as much as her pride smarted at the idea.

"So." Skylor fumbled for something to talk about. "Whatcha reading?"

"Oh, this?" Jay hurriedly stuffed a bookmark into the pages and shut the book, setting it down near his bag. "Eh, picked it up somewhere when we split yesterday. Just figured I needed _something_ to pass the time."

"Cool," she hummed. Jay'd never struck her as the reading type, but then, it wasn't wise to judge a book by its cover. Pun entirely intended.

It was awkwardly quiet again. The fire crackled.

Her mind drifted. She tried to recall just how bad their situation was, but her woefully concussed brain had a hazy grip, at best, of what exactly was wrong. She could ask about that now, try to cement the knowledge a little better. All she remembered was something to do with magic.

Jay looked ill-at-ease as he explained in a low voice that, yeah, there was magic everywhere, messing with all sorts of things from powers to electricity to … time?

And as if that wasn't enough, it was keeping them trapped inside this mansion.

And if he looked uneasy, she definitely felt it. Skylor couldn't exactly say that she was clear-minded enough to completely comprehend the effects, but as it sunk in that there was _magic_ involved, she felt a slow-rising dread take form and plant itself in her gut.

Magic.

Sure, she knew of it. Knew plenty about it, too — she'd grown up around _Clouse_. She'd had a long time to get accustomed to how dark magic felt.

But she'd never liked it. When she was a child, Clouse had tried to teach her the art, and sure, she could probably remember a few basic spells if she tried hard enough. But she had never taken to it well, and Clouse was not a kind instructor, and eventually they'd all thrown in the towel and instructed her in martial arts and close combat instead.

… Then they'd set her to work on years of scoping out elemental masters for their _plan_. And she remembered pretty well how that went.

Ugh. Moving on.

At least now she knew _what_ it was that she'd sensed walking in. And come to think of it, the same intuitive warning bell was going off now, subdued by her cloudy mind but still very much there. Of _course_ it was, she was currently completely submerged in an entire mansion's worth of magic.

Except it didn't even _feel_ like how she remembered it being. It was … different; probably why she didn't immediately recognize it. Except trying to puzzle out why that was the case made her head hurt, too, so she decided to try not to dwell on that, either.

Yeesh. There wasn't much in the way of thinking she could do, was there? Stupid concussion. This was easily the most uncomfortable Skylor had been in ages, and she'd had her moments. (Working too hard trying to get a noodle shop out of the pits your evil father threw its reputation into would ... do that to a person.)

For one thing, her head was getting on her _nerves_ with its constant dull throb. For another, even the soft lighting from the dimmed kerosene lamp on the other end of the room was starting to feel a bit _bright_ , and it was all she could do to keep her eyes even a little open.

"You alright?" Skylor started at Jay's question, waiting for the spike of pain to recede before she nodded. "You didn't say much when I tried to explain it."

Jay looked at her for a second, and Skylor couldn't read the look on his face nearly as well as she might have been able to otherwise. Then, he got up and started rummaging through a bag. She found herself bemused, because unless her memory had been thrown completely out of whack, that wasn't Jay's bag — his was navy blue, not red. That bag _was_ red, right? Or was the lighting messing with her eyes …

Evidently having found what he was looking for, Jay came back and held something out to her. Grabbing it, she realized that it was a pair of sunglasses. Blinking, she looked back up at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Kai always has a pair of those on him, somehow," Jay said, grinning. "You were squinting, so I figured they might help …"

Huh. Touched by the gesture, she slid the glasses onto her face. The tinted lenses really did help.

"Hey, not bad! You look pretty cool in those shades."

Skylor wagged her eyebrows. "Tell me something I don't already know." Jay snorted.

Smiling a little, she cautiously pulled herself off the bed, ignoring Jay's "hey, _careful_ …", and grabbed the bag she'd brought with her. "You can go back to your own business now, if you want. For now, I've got something to do."

"Alright, then." Jay walked off. Whatever it was he settled for doing, she wasn't really paying attention. Instead, she focused herself on digging out for herself a pencil and notepad. Then, not trusting her clouded brain to remember the details of what she'd just learned, she started to write.

* * *

 _No one among these lands know what happens if you ignore our warnings._

* * *

Three pairs of footsteps pattered against stone. Lloyd led the way, his power lending them light so as to save flashlight battery, and they warily descended down the stairs that had been revealed in the gallery's secret room upon closer examination and a lucky stumble on a switch. Every so often, they came across a scattered weapon, or dully gleaming white fragments that none of them dared look at too long.

Eventually, the ground leveled out, split between a straight path and one turning to the right.

He held the ball of energy in his hand out, hoping to illuminate both paths a little. The rightward path revealed no hazards, but as his green light lit up the way dead ahead …

Lloyd gulped.

On the way down, there had been skeletons littering the stairs — pieces of hands and hips and arms and a cracked skull missing some teeth, and that was just what he couldn't avoid looking at. The sight had shocked them into silence, chased away the last vestiges of calm in their minds.

The implications came to him quickly, but he tried to set them aside — this was a _wartime refuge,_ and with the beast that roamed the grounds, death-touched like everything else, they were bound to stumble into signs of what went down. He did his best not to think about it.

(His heartbeat felt uncomfortably loud in his ears anyway.)

But this … topped all else.

* * *

… _None have come back to tell the tale._


End file.
